Rumors, Reemerging
by Coquillage Atlas
Summary: Another sequel to Ink, Invisible, this story follows the events of Foes, Formidable. Irene and Erik are settled comfortably into their lives at the Opera, planning their wedding, when unexpected events emerge to remind them that past events never remain hidden for long. What will the two of them, along with the rest of S.C.O.W.L., fight against now? UPDATED!
1. Night

_Two weeks after Irene accepts Erik's proposal, there are still a few small problems back at the Opera…_

* * *

It was night.

I hurried along the underground passageway away from Erik's house, heading upstairs. My bag banged against the back of my leg as I half-ran, half-walked, but I ignored it. There were other, more important things to dwell on.

The single diamond shone bright on my finger as I passed under a guttering torch, and the facets caught the sputtering light, tossing it in fragments of rainbows around the dusty passageway. I pushed a lock of straggling hair back from my face and walked faster. My bag continued to bang against my legs.

I was going to be late.

I had promised to meet Francis in his office at nine tonight, but Erik and I had gotten a little distracted downstairs (and of course Erik had somehow managed to misplace the grandfather clock that was _supposed_ to be in the living room, making it almost impossible for one to figure out what time it was), so I was going to wind up at Francis' office around ten-fifteen. Hopefully the Count wouldn't be too annoyed.

We were meeting to discuss the police's continued presence at the Opera House – apparently even my confession and Nadir's long, detailed, and thoroughly researched explanation of my activities dealing with the Inspector and his men, had failed to convince the police of my innocence and banish them from the Opera.

Officer Fabre, Nadir's contact within the Parisian police and the man responsible for my case, had agreed to meet with Francis and I to discuss whether or not the police were required to remain in the Opera House.

For the past three weeks, policeman had been showing up everywhere: loitering outside on the Garnier's steps; watching the rehearsals, half-hidden behind pillars in the side wings of the auditorium; coming to the performances, their dark hats tipped low over their watchful eyes, faces set in grim scrutiny.

Erik had become so bothered by their presence that his pranks had increased in both number and intensity. Once he had gone so far as to trap one of them in a closet for an entire hour. The poor man had been most enraged and completely bewildered when he was finally let out. Luckily, he had been at a loss to explain what had happened to him: all he remembered was passing by a half-open closet – then a shove as someone or something knocked him off his feet – and by the time he was finally able to free himself (as he put it – an invisible Erik had opened the door for him), his gun was missing and his hat was "most horrendously crumpled."

I had spoken to Erik after that one.

* * *

"I don't think you accomplished anything worthwhile by locking Officer Bouchet in that tiny costume closet, dear," I had said, sitting on the arm of the couch in Erik's living room, _Jane Eyre_ in my lap. I'd been reading before he'd come in.

Erik crossed his arms and put his chin down in a show of classic Phantom disgust. I tried not to smile.

"He refused to follow the no-weapons policy. There was no other way to remove his weapon from him, other than wresting it from him in plain sight, which would have been counterproductive."

"You didn't need to scare the poor man out of his wits," I said, fingering the edges of my book. "And you still could have been seen – what if he happened to turn half a second before you knocked him into the closet?"

Erik frowned still darker. "No one's ever seen me," he informed me. "And you know it."

I resisted the urge to list names. "Well…"

"Well, I think I've won _my_ case," my fiancé said, and brushing past me, he stalked to the bookcase.

"No more locking people in closets, Erik," I said.

"Say please," Erik grumbled to the bookshelf, and snatched a book out at random. He flipped through it, sighed, and tossed it on top of the growing pile next to his chair.

"Please," I said, turning to Chapter Three in my book. Poor Jane was having such a hard time of it.

"Very well, dear," Erik said. "If you insist, dear."

"Thank you, dear," I said. I smiled a little behind my book. Yet another battle won…

There was a moment's pause. Then…

"What did you _do_ with my ring, Erik?"

"What ring?"

"The one you gave to me!"

"Perhaps you could enumerate, dear?"

"The one – Erik, give it back this instant."

A long pause…

"Oh, you mean _this_ ring?"

"That's _your_ ring."

"I have no idea what you mean."

"Erik, hand it over or suffer the consequences."

"I _faint_ to think of the consequences."

"Give it back, you brute."

"Wait... this ring? I didn't know you meant _this_ ring."

* * *

After I had finally gotten my engagement ring back, I had attempted to figure out what time it was, but Erik refused to tell me where the grandfather clock was.

"Well, what did you do with it?" I demanded, marching down the hallway towards his room. I had already searched the kitchen, the living room, and my old bedroom.

"I really can't remember," Erik said vaguely. "To tell you the truth-"

"You never tell the truth," I interrupted. "I'm going to be late, aren't I? This is all your fault."

"Perhaps you should have gotten here sooner, dear," Erik said, "and then we would have had more time to talk, and then you would have left earlier, and then you would have been on time."

He sounded sly. I stopped walking and turned to consider him.

"Give me your pocket watch," I said.

"What do you-"

"No, hand it _over_," I said, advancing upon him. Erik took several quick steps backward. "I know you have one, it's the only reason why you'd be so smug right now… give it to me."

"It's not _that_ late," Erik said. "Only around ten or so."

"_Ten!"_

It was a shriek of horror. I picked up my skirts and ran past him down the hall. My bag was in the living room, and in it was a list of questions I needed to ask Francis and Officer Fabre.

Erik trailed behind me, humming a melancholy tune.

"You have to leave right now?" he inquired as I ran around the living room, picking up papers and books and stuffing them into my bag at random. "You can't stay a little longer?"

"No, I _can't_ – can't you help me – why didn't you tell me what time it was?!"

Erik sank down onto the sofa with a loud sigh. "I only have so much time to see you, dear. And without you, my life is like a Van Gogh painting soaked in rain – the colors drip off the canvas and everything melts into a soggy gray."

I rolled my eyes at this dramatic pronouncement, and finished stuffing the last of my belongings into my bag. Erik and I saw each other at least every other hour. "I'm off to see the Count. I expect you to be somewhere nearby listening, so that if Officer Fabre decides to do something foolhardy, you can intervene. Goodnight."

"Goodnight, my one and only," Erik intoned. "Goodnight, my pale white dove. Goodnight, my sweetheart, my love, my dream, my perfect song! Goodnight, goodnight, goodnight, gooooodnight-"

I sailed forth from the room and slammed the door shut on his woeful warbles.

* * *

Officer Fabre and the Count were waiting for me in the Count's office when I opened the door.

"Good evening," I said, calmly. I had decided to adopt a serene attitude, as there was really no way to redeem myself from my lateness. "I'm sorry for making you both wait for me."

"No matter," Francis said, with a sickly smile. Both men had jumped to their feet to greet me, and they were standing side by side like dolls in a glass case, frozen expressions and all. He glanced sideways at the officer. "Officer Fabre was telling me about some of his cases."

"All of the culprits ended up in jail," said Officer Fabre.

His face was fixed in a carefully neutral smile.

"Why don't we sit down?" the Count inquired, when I failed to respond to this dismal line. "Irene, take my chair."

He was referring to the overstuffed chair behind his desk. I sat down in his chair without a second thought. Sitting behind desks always reminded me of writing, and writing calmed me.

Officer Fabre sat down in a straight-backed wooden chair in front of the desk, and Francis lowered himself onto a tiny cushioned stool, stretching out his long legs across the rug for balance.

"I believe that you wanted to inquire after my officers' continued presence in the Opera, Mademoiselle Dubois," Officer Fabre said. I had given him permission to use my real name, so long as he didn't do so within earshot of those not part of S.C.O.W.L's membership.

I nodded. "Yes. I assume they are here to keep an eye on me?"

"Not precisely," the Officer said. He took out a small notepad and lifted Francis' pen from its stand. "But before I go into details, I have a few questions for _you_."

I looked at Francis.

The Count frowned at me. Apparently he hadn't expected this. "What do you mean, Officer?" he said, turning to Fabre. "I asked Irene to come here simply because she is the patroness of the Opera. I didn't think you were going to question her."

"It is not what you think, Count," Officer Fabre said, unperturbed. "Only a few questions, Mademoiselle Dubois."

"And if I don't answer them?" I said. I had expected something like this; any policeman connected with the Inspector case would be curious about me. I hadn't told everything in my confession. Erik, for one, had never been mentioned, neither by me nor by Nadir.

"Well, there are actions I could take," the Officer said. "But I have no desire to do so, so why don't you listen to the questions first, and then decide if you wish to answer them."

"I don't think I can condone this," the Count said, shaking his head. "Officer, I did not schedule this meeting so you could interrogate my patroness-"

"I do not intend to interrogate her, Count, and I believe the Parisian police still have jurisdiction here, even within the walls of the Opera. Please allow me to do my job."

"Francis," I said, before the Count managed to get another word in, "let him ask me the questions. We'll decide what to do afterwards."

"Thank you," Officer Fabre said, meeting my eyes with his steely ones. "Mademoiselle Dubois, I only have three questions. The first: How long are you planning to stay at the Opera? The second: Would you be willing to do a small assignment for the police? And finally: Are you certain all of your enemies died in the fire?"

I had caught my breath at the second question, and at the last, I felt my face grow cold as the blood drained from it. What did he mean? He wasn't insinuating…?

"Are they or aren't they dead?" I demanded. "Linnet, the Inspector, Nicolas – you told us their bodies were found on the estate. And what do you mean by an assignment?"

The Officer smiled. "It seems that this meeting may go in a slightly different direction than you planned, Francis," he said, without taking his eyes from me. "Mademoiselle Dubois, would you like to accept an undercover assignment from the Parisian police?"

"You'd have to tell me what it entails," I said. "And I'd have to think about it."

"Do you remember what the Inspector told you, Mademoiselle Dubois?"

I held my breath. I thought I knew what he was going to say next.

Officer Fabre leaned forward.

"_I assure you, this trap will not be as easy for you to get out of. It is very unlike the last time we met... I have more connections; more men; more twists in my plan than you will ever know."_

He was quoting from my confession, and his voice was his own, but I heard the Inspector's jovial tones.

"He's alive," I said, very quietly.

"Maybe," Fabre said. "Maybe, Mademoiselle Dubois. We don't know. We need you to find him, if he is."

"If I say no?" I said. I was thinking of Erik. My engagement ring was cold and smooth against the hand I'd slipped into my pocket (I always took off my ring while in the upper parts of the Opera. No one outside of S.C.O.W.L. could know that I was engaged, seeing as I couldn't tell anyone about my fiancé).

And I was also thinking of Madame Giry, Francis, Nadir – I couldn't leave them now, now that everything was finally all right.

"I wouldn't say you had a choice, Mademoiselle Dubois," Fabre said. "I read through your confession very thoroughly. Sometimes I wonder how you managed to pull all of it off alone. It seems to me that there are a few things - a few people, maybe - missing from your tale."

The Count stood. "I think this meeting is over, Officer. Asking Irene questions is one thing; accusing her of lying in an official police statement is quite another."

"Is it?" Fabre asked, his voice quiet. He rose to his feet. "Goodnight, Mademoiselle Dubois. I would think over our offer very carefully if I were you."

As he went out, he dropped a sealed envelope on the desk.

* * *

_Count Le Nansen,_

_It has come to our attention that the Phantom of the Opera has been sighted numerous times over the last month. We would like permission to excavate the Opera House (in particular, the walls, stairwells, and cellars) in search of this man, who has been accused of many crimes over the last few years. Of course, it is up to you and the patroness of the Opera._

_We wish you all the best,_

_The Parisian Police Department_


	2. Still Night

_Hello, dear readers. It's lovely to be back! And Venture Wood, thank you for the helpful comment about the wording in my last chapter. It was kind of you to point it out, really._

_Chapter Two! Enjoy :).  
_

* * *

After Officer Fabre left, Erik entered the office by means of the prima donna portrait (Francis still hadn't found a painting that fit over the passageway that wasn't completely atrocious), and snatched the opened letter from the Count's limp and shaking hands.

"Ludicrous," he snarled, reading through it in a flash and tossing it at the fireplace. "Cowardly, that they'll stoop to blackmail in order to make you do their dirty work for them."

There was a knock on the door – Francis leapt to his feet and nearly knocked his stool over.

"Who is it?" he demanded.

"Me," said a familiar female voice.

"And me," said another familiar voice, but this one was male.

"It's just the rest of S.C.O.W.L.," I said. "Let them in, Francis. Erik, you missed the fire."

Erik picked up the note from the floor and dropped it into the flames. It caught, crackled for a moment, and then crumpled sadly into a pile of gray ashes. "I hate policemen. And you can't take the job, Irene. I'm sure Dumont's not alive; they're just sending you on a wild goose chase."

"What job?" Madame Giry said, entering the room, Nadir behind her. "I admit I'm slightly confused. Why do you look so horrorstruck, Francis?"

Nadir closed the door. "What's going on?"

I took a deep breath. "Officer Fabre has asked me to take an undercover assignment to find the Inspector. The police seem to have suspicions that he's still alive. And because I did not appear interested enough, I suppose, Fabre is stooping to blackmail. He knows something is up between us and 'the Phantom,' and he left us a nice little note about possibly turning the Opera upside down in order to find him."

"Where is it?" Antoinette asked, looking from me to Francis to Erik. Her eyes went to the fire. "Oh. No, don't tell me."

"You always burn everything, Erik," Nadir said with a sigh. "Madame Giry, would you like a chair?"

"Take mine," I said, getting to my feet. "I need some fresh air."

The four of them watched me walk to the door. As I reached for the handle, a barrage of questions broke over me in a surprisingly loud wave of sound.

"But where are you going? We haven't even talked about anything yet!"

"Maybe you would like to finish-"

"Please don't leave, dear-"

It was difficult to determine who was talking about what, but I got the gist of it. I turned and looked at them.

"Officer Fabre insinuated that the Inspector's not dead," I said, pressing the engagement ring in my pocket so hard against my thigh that it hurt. "And he just asked me to spend who _knows_ how long looking for him. And he's bribing me with the knowledge that he might know more about Erik than we think, and now I have no idea what to do."

Erik hadn't said anything, but now he did.

"Francis, sit down. Antoinette, would you like a cup of tea? Nadir, stop standing there and go find some tea. Irene-"

He was corralling them, giving me time to think.

"I'll be on the roof," I said in answer to his silent question. "I'm sorry, but I need to think. I'll be back an about an hour."

"We'll be here," Antoinette said. "Francis, your teapot seems to be cracked. Would you like me to locate another one?"

* * *

The roof was empty, the leaves swept clean from the cobblestones by a fragrant, whispery summer breeze. I sat down under one of the angels, leaning my head against the base of the cool stone statue. My heart was thumping painfully in my chest.

But I refused to be afraid.

If the Inspector was alive, there was no use in running around in a panic, nor in wasting time in heated, frenetic babbling. And I was sick of half-baked plans that ended in near-disaster or that backfired upon us almost as soon as they started. We were not going to fall into a trap this time.

If Officer Fabre wished to blackmail me into submission, the first thing I was going to do was consult with Nadir. I needed to find out how high up Fabre was in the Parisian police, how many people knew about my case, and if the Phantom was really a threat in their eyes. I also needed to speak to Erik, to ask him about taking a small break from the Opera House. A week would probably do.

I was not planning on spying for the police. I wasn't going to go back to that hellhole where Nicolas had killed Erik and Linnet had tortured him, and I certainly wasn't going to go there alone.

So that was settled. And if Fabre still wished to "excavate" the Opera in search of the Phantom, we would let him. Erik still had many of the passageways sealed up, some never to be opened again, and if he didn't want to leave the Opera, he could simply sit underground in his house for a few days.

If things got too close, if Fabre managed to break open one of the passageways or if he found anything suspicious, we could move Erik to Nadir's apartment in the city. Neither of them would mind, and if the police did break into Erik's house (but this was so unlikely it bordered on impossible), Erik would simply flood his home by triggering some sort of contraption under the lake, and hide any trace of him ever having been there.

If that happened, we'd just have to move to the country a little early. Besides, we'd already relocated several of the biggest items from his home to our new place in the countryside.

We'd bought it by selling Linnet's diamond necklace and a few of the Inspector's more ostentatious items, such as the jewelry and old paintings Hansen had left in the back of his carriage.

Every few nights, Erik and I had lugged things from his house up to the back of the Opera, piled them into Hansen's carriage (which was now ours, and which we had dubbed _The Gilded Lily_), and driven off into the countryside.

Our new home was located on the outskirts of a forest, near a small lake (which was more of a large pond, but Erik refused to call it that), and it was everything we had ever wanted. There was a comfy living room filled with bookcases and sofas and cushioned chairs; a small, heavily-windowed kitchen with white cabinets and a dinner table that fit seven; two guest rooms; a large master bedroom decorated in pale green fabric and dark brown wood; and a luxuriant rose garden that snarled and flowered across half the property.

The elderly couple that had sold it to us had complained of ghosts – but seeing as neither Erik nor I believed in such things, we hadn't cared and bought it anyways. A few hours after they'd left, Erik and I had discovered that their idea of a ghost was actually a loose panel in the top of the fireplace that flapped when a breeze came through the chimney. _Thump… thump… thump…_ it went, and Erik and I broke into hysterical, happy laughter when we found out what it was.

We had a home, and we were engaged, and we were to be married in a month.

For a few days I'd thought that nothing could possibly go wrong.

Well, it was clear that things could.

* * *

I heard Erik coming before I saw him. I had used to think that his every movement was silent, but now I had been around him so long that I knew he wasn't. There were always tell-tale signs of his approach: the softest of whispers from his clothing, or a small thump when he brought his foot down slightly wrong on the cobblestones.

He sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders, and I leaned my head against his chest.

"Antoinette suggests that we leave as soon as possible. She thinks it would be best if we took a vacation from Paris while Fabre tears apart the Opera in search of me."

"How long?" I asked. "We have to be back in time for the wedding. Unless you want to move it from Saint Julien Le Pauvre to the countryside. We could always get married in the rose garden. That would be lovely."

Le Pauvre was a small church on the left bank of the Seine; Erik and I had passed by it on our way home and promptly fallen in love with it.

"I think that would do nicely," Erik agreed. "You've always liked roses. And the fresh air would be nice, not to mention the extra room for our guests. Le Pauvre is a little small. Afternoon or morning?"

I considered. "Afternoon. When the shadows fall long across the grass and the trees are gold with the fading sunlight, you know. You don't mind?"

"No," Erik said. "Afternoon it is." He glanced around at the quiet rooftop. "It's oddly peaceful up here right now."

I frowned as I thought about this. "Usually there are some policemen lurking around, but perhaps they've decided to take the night off?"

Erik lifted his arm from my shoulders and stood, turning in a slow circle to survey the roof. I recognized the wary look in his eyes: he was the Phantom once more. "Perhaps."

I stood too, wishing I could shake the disquieting feeling, but I was as uneasy as he.

"Let's go," I said. "There's no use in being found out now. And the others are waiting for us."

"They will have to wait a little longer," said a voice from the shadowy base of a rearing centaur. "Come quietly now, Phantom. We have you and your fiancée surrounded."

* * *

Officer Fabre inched carefully into the light of the torches, his face quite calm. The gun in his hand was shiny and black. From the shadows followed a little army of policemen, their faces as remote as their leader's. Each of them held drawn weapons.

"You're not faster than a bullet," Fabre said, speaking to Erik.

Erik looked back at him. For a moment I thought he would leap forward – attack him –

"I suppose you are right," the Phantom said. He held up his hands agreeably.

This surprised me, but only for a moment. I had forgotten how much Erik despised guns.

"Officer," I said. I wasn't close enough for Erik to stop me; I stepped in front of him and towards the officer, my heart leaping in my throat like a dying fish. "This is not the way to go about making me your ally."

"This man is a wanted criminal," Fabre said. "Step aside, Mademoiselle Dubois."

His hands were steady on the gun. I swallowed.

"Martin. Please. I'll fulfill your assignment – let him go. I know your threats are real now."

"I'm sorry, Mademoiselle Dubois," the Officer replied. His eyes were fixed on Erik. "I need to make sure you do as you say. Your fiancé is the perfect bargaining chip. Back away, slowly."

"Irene, do as he says," Erik said from behind me. "Officer, I'm clearly not arguing with you. Handcuff me and let's be off."

The tension was clear in his voice. He was afraid for me, but I closed my ears to him.

"He's done nothing wrong," I said, my voice rising. "Listen to me, Officer. He's done _nothing_ wrong. If you want me to spy for you, I will. But I swear to you – if you hurt him-"

"We are not planning on hurting him, Mademoiselle," the Officer said, his voice tighter than before. The gun listed a little to the right, wavering towards me. I hadn't stopped walking; I was only a foot away now. "Stop walking. Back away."

I stopped, but I didn't step back. "Let him go."

"He's a criminal-"

"He's a bargaining chip!"

"Irene, stop-"

"You listen to me, Officer – you simply _cannot_ march up here and threaten us-"

"_If you take one more step, Mademoiselle, I will shoot."_

Fabre had reached his breaking point. His fingers were white on the gun.

I backed away, very slowly, and collided softly with Erik. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me tight against his side. He was shaking.

"Officer Fabre," he said. "Arrest me and you lose Irene. Threaten Irene and you gain me as your enemy."

"Your options, Phantom," Fabre said, waving Erik's words aside with a shake of his head, "are to come quietly, or to be brought in by force. Which will it be?"

"Quietly," Erik said. "As a gentleman should. Irene, please step over there."

He released me. I didn't move.

"Fabre," I said, almost pleading, "I plan to marry him."

"_God_," Fabre said, his voice a groan. "This is the longest arrest I have ever made. I am not planning to shoot him, Mademoiselle Dubois, I only wish to handcuff him and take him to jail. He will have a proper trial, and there will be a judge and a jury. Justice will be done."

"If you arrest him," I said, "I will not carry out your assignment. I'll leave Paris. I doubt you'll be able to find me; you didn't manage to find the Inspector even with outside help."

"It seems we are at a stalemate," Erik observed. He sounded less worried now; I wondered what he was thinking. Then I remembered something, and my heart rose with relief. _Thank God._

"We are not," the Officer said, grimacing. "You will be arrested either way. Mademoiselle Dubois will help us, unless she wants her lover to languish in jail for the rest of his life. Now will both of you be quiet and let us arrest you?"

It was the wrong question. I burst into gasping, half-sobbing laughter. Officer Fabre's horrified eyes went from the Phantom to me.

Erik took two steps backwards, looped an arm around my waist, and we vanished into the cobblestones.

* * *

It seemed, I thought as we plummeted downward, that Officer Fabre had forgotten to check the roof for trapdoors.


	3. Late Night

_And thus begins Chapter Three..._

* * *

The mirror trap I had fallen into so long ago was no longer a trap, only a disintegrated platform where it had once stood: a heap of shattered boards tangled in decaying stage curtains.

Erik turned sideways as we fell, so that he'd land first and take the brunt of the impact, and I heard him grunt involuntarily as we landed.

My head smacked into his shoulder blade, and for a long moment I could only see a silent curtain of blinking, fading stars. My feet had collided painfully with an old board, and I was sure there was a line of bruises forming along the side of my right arm, where Erik's hands hadn't been able to protect me from the landing.

"Are you hurt?"

"No. Do you mind standing up? I can't move."

"I can't. Your feet are caught in my skirts."

From above us there came the angry voice of a disappointed Officer Fabre: "Trebuchet, take six men and go downstairs. Block the left-wing corridor. They're still on the second floor – hurry!"

I fought free of Erik's boots, ripping my skirts in the process, and half-dragged, half-helped him to his feet. He leaned against me for a second – I thought I felt something wet drip onto my shoulder.

The old storage room was buried in darkness. I couldn't see anything but a thin line of light where the door had to be, and Erik's face (was he bleeding?) was invisible in the blackness.

"Are you hurt?" I asked again. "You're dripping on me."

"Just a scratch on my cheek. Nothing serious. I can hear them coming. We need to move."

He pushed his way to the door, wading through the mass of old costumes and broken set pieces, one arm still about my waist. I kicked what I thought was a dress off my foot and tugged at the door handle. It swung open, and as light broke over our dirty, bleeding faces, the seven policemen in the corridor drew their weapons.

* * *

"Come quietly," the first officer said, breathless from exertion. He had to have just run down the stairs. His face was youthful and unlined, but I didn't doubt he knew what he was doing. "Both of you. The lady first."

I stepped out into the corridor, itching to swipe a cobweb from the back of my neck, but I decided it would be better to keep my hands in the air. One of the other policemen, a dark-haired man with a thin mustache, took hold of my arm and pulled me to the side. I didn't resist.

Erik followed without preamble.

"Turn around," said the first officer. "Close the door."

Erik closed the door.

"Face the wall."

Erik turned to the wall, and the officer holstered his weapon. "Hands behind you."

I watched silently as Erik was handcuffed.

"Officer," I said, "I demand that you take me with him."

"Officer Fabre will decide what to do with you, Mademoiselle Dubois," said the policeman, stepping away from Erik. "This man will be taken to the police station."

I opened my mouth to protest, but a voice broke over mine.

"She can come too, Trebuchet," said Officer Fabre. He came down the corridor towards us, his face a little less blank than before, his lips lifted a little at the edges, his eyes crinkled at the corners. He was happy.

I gritted my teeth. This was idiotic.

"But don't handcuff her. Let's be off."

Erik said calmly, "On what charges are you arresting me, Officer?"

Fabre dropped his pistol into its holster. "Evading the police, stealing, trespassing, and possible murder charges. We can talk about it in more detail at the station."

"Fabre," I said, "I think you've made your point. You have Erik in custody. You want me to do an assignment for you. I accept. Let Erik go, and we can talk about this like civilized people."

"Mademoiselle Dubois," Fabre said, "you are very persistent, but I don't trust you without the Phantom. He's coming with us, and so are you. Let's go."

The policeman holding my arm tugged, and the other men swung into place behind me as Fabre led Erik up the corridor, his gray head held high in triumph.

* * *

We had reached the entrance to the street when I realized what Fabre intended to do.

He sent two men ahead of him to open the heavy front doors. They pushed the wooden partitions open, and Fabre went down the long row of steps, Erik at his side, policemen all around us, their backs straight, arms swinging. It was deep night, but the streetlamps were shining brilliantly in the darkness, and I felt sure that we were both completely visible.

We heard the reporters before we saw them. There was a sudden tumult of noise, a shiver of movement along the dark sidewalks, and then they burst into sight all around us.

"It's him!"

"Is it true you've captured the Phantom of the Opera, Officer Fabre?"

"Is it possible to question him?"

"Let me through, I have to speak to him!"

"Officer Fabre! Do you have a statement regarding the nature of your case?"

"Did the Phantom come willingly or did he attack you, Officer?"

"Why is he wearing a mask?"

"Take off the mask! Tell us who he is!"

"Pardon me, excuse me, give us space," Officer Fabre said loudly, but he was smiling faintly, and the reporters swarmed around us like overgrown moths, waving their notebooks and pens, their eyes lit with feverish curiosity.

He stopped on the steps, Erik looming inches above him. Fabre was shorter than I had thought.

Erik's masked face was remote. I fought free of the policeman holding my arm, and pushed my way past another policeman to him.

I wrapped both hands around his arm, figuring that if I hung onto him hard enough, they'd decide to leave me alone. I was right: the policemen behind me tried to take hold of my shoulders and tug me away, but a look from Fabre stopped them. It seemed he didn't want a scuffle while savoring his turn in the limelight.

The reporters were still shouting and cavorting around us; I could feel the press of their bodies as they edged closer. Fabre raised an authoritative hand in the air, and they quieted down.

"Yes, to answer all of your questions, we have captured the Phantom. This young lady with him-"

"Katelienne Laurent, yes?" said the nearest reporter, a fair-haired man with a ferocious smile of interest. "Once engaged to the previous manager of the Opera. And the woman who wrote-"

"Now engaged to the Phantom," Fabre interrupted, and I felt Erik tense next to me. I glanced up at his face – the half I could see was stiff with rage.

Fabre was giving too much away, and everything Erik and I had built here was crumbling around us in a matter of seconds. The reporters whispered among themselves, their voices building to a crescendo, and I felt my legs shaking. I saw one of the reporters sketching Erik's face on his notepad – he shaded the half-mask, outlined the eyes, began to draw the slope of his cheek.

"Why have you arrested him?" demanded another voice, this one a woman's. I looked away from the artist and saw a slight woman with curly blond hair, her eyebrows drawn down in a mixture of confusion and disagreement. Her notepad was covered in miniscule handwriting. "What crime have you accused him of?"

"As we all know," another reporter said, cutting off Fabre as the Officer opened his mouth to speak, "the Phantom is a murderer and criminal. He should be put away."

"Oh, be quiet," I snapped, taking a step towards the man who had spoken. He stared back at me with wide brown eyes, surprised at being addressed. "You know those are only rumors. What sort of idiot would believe them?"

"But why does he wear a mask, then?" the man countered, turning from me. "Take it off, Officer – show us who he is!"

Fabre ignored him. The interview was over. He snapped his fingers, and the policemen behind me began to walk. Erik and I were herded down the steps through the reporters, to the carriage waiting for us at the curb. I swallowed hard as I looked at it.

It was a prison vehicle. The sides were painted black, and written on them were the words:

_The Official Prison of Paris._

Fabre pulled the side door open, and Erik and I entered.

The door slammed, the carriage bounced as two policemen sprang up onto the box seat, and then we began to move.

We were off.

Off to prison.

* * *

They separated Erik and I as soon as we got out of the carriage: I was brought to one of the interrogation rooms upstairs, and he was sent downstairs to a cell.

Fabre sat across from me at a dirty table in a tiny, blackened room, his hands folded.

"As you have accepted the assignment, Mademoiselle Dubois," he said, "we should discuss the nature of your job. You will be 'vacationing' in Venice, Italy in the disguise of a French tourist on her honeymoon. You will be paid ten thousand francs for your trouble."

"And Erik?" I said, very quietly, biting off the words. "What will he be doing?"

"Erik will be taken care of very comfortably. I have arranged for him to stay under house arrest – not his home, of course, but a friend's. You will not have to worry about him."

"I doubt that. And what if I refuse to cooperate?" I said. "What then, Officer?"

Fabre considered me. "We will send Erik to trial. If you _do_ cooperate, however, when you return from your assignment, we'll let your fiancé go."

I looked hard at him. "I'll need more than your word, Officer. I require something else."

"You never give up, do you?" Fabre said, chuckling humorlessly. "What is it?"

"If I'm going to Italy, Erik is coming with me," I said. "Otherwise I refuse to do anything, and since it is clear I'm the only one you want for this job, you really can't send Erik to trial. It would only make me less interested in helping you."

Fabre had stopped smiling his blank smile. He tightened his lips and looked away, eyes intent on something in the distance.

I waited.

"Very well," he said, after a long moment. "Erik may come with you. But he is still a prisoner of France, and he will have to be under guard at all times."

There was a knock on the door.

"Come in," Fabre said.

The door opened, and Nadir entered, his dark face drawn with disgust, annoyance, and anger.

"You idiot," he said to Fabre. "You bloody, insolent, arrogant fool. How dare you jeopardize my friends' lives over something as stupid as this."

"Sit down," Fabre said, without rancor. "Remember that I am in charge, not you, Monsieur Khan. The Inspector must be stopped, and he is more important than a wedding or two."

"Nadir," I said, breathless at the shock. "What are you doing here? Why did you call him here?"

I had directed my last question at Fabre, but he ignored me. Nadir shook his head helplessly at me.

"I didn't know about any of this until ten minutes ago," he said. "Irene, I am so sorry. Where's Erik?"

"Locked up," I snapped, feeling my legs begin to shake again. "Downstairs. What is going on? Explain at once, both of you."

Fabre blinked at my officious tone. "Nadir Khan, along with an undercover detective, is going to be coming with you to Venice. We'll have to make arrangements now for your fiancé – I didn't think it would be _this _complicated – but we'll manage. Nadir, of course, is coming because he knows the most about the case besides me, and I'm not able to travel to Venice at this time."

"Actually," Nadir interrupted, "the two people who know most about the case are Irene and Erik. Not you or me."

"Neither of which could be hired at the time we needed them," Fabre said, "seeing as one of them was embroiled in fake names and suspicious deaths, and the other was hidden somewhere in the Opera. You were the best choice, Monsieur Khan. And now, Mademoiselle Dubois, you are."

"Explain why you need me," I said. "And then let Erik and I go."

"The second part will be impossible," Fabre said. He looked at Nadir. "Sit down. Mademoiselle Dubois, you will be going on your assignment tonight. I thought it would be best if I severed your ties to the Opera as completely as possible and made it very clear that you are in jail for harboring a criminal. The Inspector will not suspect that you are coming after him."

It was difficult not to slap him, but I controlled myself. "You've ruined everything I've worked for, Officer. My name is destroyed. You've connected me to the Phantom, and now everyone who knows me personally is in danger of losing their good reputations as well. Erik is similarly ruined. He can't return to the Opera; everyone knows what he looks like, and the mystery of the Phantom itself is gone. The Opera sales will drop, and the place I've called home for the past year will crumble."

Officer Fabre cleared his throat and met my eyes. For a moment I thought I saw a shadow of remorse pass over his face, but then he blinked and it was gone.

"It was necessary, Mademoiselle Dubois," he said. "Sit _down_, Monsieur Khan. Allow me to explain to each of you what kind of steps we will be taking in order to capture the Inspector. First, of course, I will explain why we believe he is still alive in the first place."

Nadir sat down across from me, his eyes cold as they watched Fabre.

The Officer began his tale.

Under the table, I fingered my tiny syringe of sedative, brushing the capped needle gently against my palm. The police hadn't searched me, though they'd searched Erik.

If I had to, I would also do what was necessary.


	4. Past Midnight

_Wow I'm going really fast. Don't expect me to usually put up chapters this early, readers, but for today it seems I will be! :)_

_Enjoy!  
_

* * *

Fabre droned on for a long, long time in that tiny, dark room. I eventually came to the point where I wished he'd simply shut up just so I could think, but he wouldn't stop talking. Nadir was the one who finally cut him off.

"That's enough," he said, after Fabre circled back around to a point he'd made long before. "We've gotten it. You think the Inspector is back because a copyist is missing, and the copyist specialized in Raphael's works, who was the Inspector's favorite artist. _This_ is your evidence."

"Not to mention that the copyist's pieces are so similar to the originals that they are virtually impossible to distinguish, which makes them very, very valuable," began Fabre, "nor that the body we thought was the Inspector's wasn't actually his-"

"And does anyone in the police department actually know what the Inspector looked like?" I demanded. "Nadir and Erik and I were the only ones who met him. You only discovered his 'supposed' corpse, and now you're saying it wasn't even him."

"We believe the Inspector employed a doppelganger in case something like this occurred," Fabre said. "The doppelganger is dead. The Inspector is alive, in Venice."

"You only think he's there because someone who copies rare Raphael works has vanished from Venice?" I said. "What kind of proof is that?"

Fabre stiffened at my casual insulting of his evidence. "It's good proof," he insisted, failing to use proper grammar in his annoyance. "At least we know Venice is the best place to start."

"You're not going to start _anything_," Nadir said, his temper rising. "He's not," he said to me. "They're not even going to investigate. They're just going to fling you out there and hope that your presence is enough to bring the Inspector out into the open. They're using you as bait."

I had guessed this already, but as usual, attack was the best defense.

"What do you mean?" I demanded, glaring at Fabre. "I'm not going to be used as bait. Find some other woman to drop into the middle of Venice and wander around while you and your men stumble from one clue to the next. I'm going home with my fiance."

"Once again," Fabre said, "you really don't have a choice, Mademoiselle. Refuse and we send the Phantom to trial. Cooperate, and we'll send the two of you home when you're done. Do you see any other options?"

I did, but I didn't know if I could get around the table before he drew his gun. I shook my head, and slipped the syringe back up my sleeve. I'd have to wait.

"Very well," I said. "Tell me what I have to do for your assignment."

Officer Fabre smiled without emotion. "As of now, nothing. I'll have the Phantom brought upstairs. The two of you can wait here while Nadir and I gather men and equipment. We'll be leaving in a half hour at the most."

He rose to his feet, checked his gun, nodded at me. "Don't try anything. There are guards up and down these halls; you'd never get out."

Nadir smiled sadly at me as he followed Fabre out.

* * *

Erik was still bleeding when they brought him downstairs. I got up when he entered the room, and reached up carefully to touch the line of blood across his cheekbone.

The door slammed; we were alone.

"Does it hurt?"

"No," Erik said, taking my hand and holding it against his chest. "Did they hurt you?"

"No," I said. "They're allowing you to come with me."

"On the assignment," he said. "You're taking it."

"It's either that or allow you to go to trial," I said, "and we're not going to do that."

Erik pressed his lips together until they turned white. Then he let out a long breath, and his face relaxed into calmer lines. "I see."

I was planning on escaping in Venice, of course. Erik had figured this out, but he wasn't going to say anything here, especially while people were probably eavesdropping on us. I reached up with my free hand and brushed an errant lock of hair off his mask.

"Did they-?"

Erik shook his head. "No. I've been treated rather well. Fabre's methods are despicable, but you can't argue with how he handles prisoners. Of course all my weapons and things are gone, but I expected that. Are you thirsty? Tired?"

"Just angry," I said. I swiped at the sweat on my forehead. The interrogation room was much too warm. "And ready to be out of here. Nadir's coming with us too."

"A good choice," Erik said. He lowered his voice. "For both parties, perhaps."

I nodded, sitting down on the edge of the table. A section of my ripped skirts trailed pathetically around my ankles, a flapping green flag fallen in defeat.

"Did they say anything to you?"

Erik shook his head. "I don't know anything about the case."

"They think the Inspector's in Venice," I said, "because a very good Raphael copyist has mysteriously vanished, and also because the body they thought was the Inspector's has turned out to be a doppelganger's."

"The Inspector is devoted to Raphael?"

"Apparently."

"And how do they know the body isn't his?"

"I have no idea."

Erik ran his fingers through his hair. "Their investigating leaves much to be desired."

"Yes," I sighed, "and yet they've managed to destroy our reputations with a handful of shoddy rumors. What will Francis do now?"

"He'll get more publicity for a little while," Erik said. "Bad news is good news, you know. There won't be trouble until I go to trial."

"You can't go to trial," I said, suddenly feeling very afraid. "Fabre said you're going with me."

Erik's eyes were distant. "If Fabre said there was going to be a trial, there will be a trial. Irene, it would be the trial of the century. The Phantom of the Opera, captured at last by the Parisian police, forced to face the punishment his many crimes deserve." He looked down at me. "There's going to be a trial."

"But Erik – you can't go! You're coming with me! And Fabre said afterwards we could leave-"

"He did, did he?" Erik said. "Fabre won't keep his promise. This is what is going to happen: you are going to draw the Inspector out of Venice, and the police are going to capture him – hopefully without him injuring or capturing you – and then both the Inspector and I will be sent back to Paris for our respective trials. The only difference between our fates is that I'll get more publicity."

This was too much. I pulled my hand free from his and stood. "And now you're saying they'll convict you, when we haven't even ruled out the possibility that Fabre will keep his word. I don't agree. We'll have to wait."

Erik said nothing, only watched me.

"Oh, _stop_ it!" I snapped. "You always jump to the most pessimistic scenarios. We still have time; we'll figure something out."

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Fabre opened the door. "It's time. Phantom, I don't want to handcuff you, but I feel I must. Your hands, please."

Erik extended his hands, and Fabre snapped the cuffs on. "Mademoiselle Dubois, I trust you to walk on your own. We are going to the back of the station, where a carriage will pick you up and take you to your first stop."

"Wait," I said. I'd seen Nadir and thought of something the Officer had failed to mention. "The Inspector knows Nadir's face. He'll know exactly who we are if the three of us show up together."

Officer Fabre smiled. "Precisely."

There was a moment's silence.

"You want us to be found," I said. It seemed difficult to breathe. "The reporters on the steps tonight – you brought them there because you wanted a big scene, a popular article in the newspapers. The Inspector is going to know we're coming. He'll know I'm coming to Venice. He'll have everything set up for my arrival. I – I don't stand a chance."

"Yes," Fabre said. He looked around at the three of us. "Sometimes undercover work isn't all that quiet. Sometimes you need something to be big and blown-up."

"But you're destroying your own investigation," Erik said, his words cold and blunt. "If the Inspector knows Irene is coming, he'll know your men are coming too."

"I'm only sending one," the Officer said. "And he has his instructions. Mademoiselle Dubois, are you sure you want to bring your fiancé with you? As you wrote in your confession, he nearly died last time because of you."

I drew in a painful breath. Erik's eyes were fixed on Fabre, his expression implacable, menacing.

"You can't send Nadir with us," I said, regaining control of myself. "I know more about the case than he does. Erik – it's up to you."

"I'm coming," Erik said, without taking his eyes from Fabre. "Even in handcuffs."

Fabre nodded. "Good. Yes, Mademoiselle Dubois, Nadir can stay. You're right – it would draw too much attention to have all three of you there. Though why you want to keep a masked man with you is more than I can fathom."

He pulled out his pocket watch and checked the time. "Yes, we should be going. Monsieur Khan, you are excused. I expect you to keep the details of this case silent."

Nadir stood aside as Fabre went into the corridor.

Erik dropped something into his friend's hand as he passed, something shiny, silvery. I couldn't tell what it was. Nadir slipped it into his pocket and turned his face to me.

"I'm sorry," he said. He paused. "I'll keep an eye on Antoinette and Francis."

"Tell them I love them," I said. I wanted to say something more, but I couldn't find the words. I looked at Nadir for a long moment. "Thank you."

Fabre was still walking; he snapped his fingers and two policemen swept past Nadir, separating me from him. I turned away, and followed Fabre down the corridor. Erik was flanked by three policeman; I could hear his handcuffs clinking as he walked.

* * *

We climbed into the carriage, and Erik sat down across from me, his head lowered.

Fabre looked in at the two of us. "Good luck."

I ignored him. It was childish, but it was better than cursing at him, which was what I wanted to do.

The Officer patted the side of the carriage and stepped away. A new man came up the carriage steps, and paused in the doorway, looking at us.

He was blond-haired, but it was not the white-blond hair of Luke or Nicolas; it was more honey-colored, and his eyes were a faded hazel. His face was clean-shaven; the absence of facial hair made him look young. He could have been as tall as Erik, but I wasn't sure.

"Good evening," he said. His voice was that of an older man, harsh, gritty. Blunt. "I am Christophe Janvier. You may call me Christophe."

He swung himself lightly into the carriage – perhaps he was younger than I had thought – and shut the door.

The carriage started, and Erik and I exchanged looks of interest. This man clearly had presence, but would he be able to keep an eye on both of us?

"I see you two know each other quite well," Christophe said.

I glanced sideways at him. "We _are_ engaged."

He looked at me, his hazel eyes penetrating, yet cool. "That's something you should refrain from telling people, especially if you wish to stay alive while in Venice. The man you're seeking is wilier than you think."

"Oh, the Inspector already knows about the two of us," I said, irritated that he thought I'd be stupid enough to tell everyone about Erik and I. "It seems you know less than I thought you would."

"I know about the Inspector," Christophe said. "Many people do. He's quite famous in Europe, though they used to call him something else. And did you consider pretending that the two of you aren't engaged while you're in Venice? The Inspector might find more use for you as a depressed woman than as a happily engaged one."

"I think Irene is probably better versed on the Inspector than you are," Erik said, breaking into the conversation. "She's spoken to him a number of times, you see. How long have you been on his case? A month?"

Christophe considered Erik the way a snake looks at a cat – wary, but interested. "Almost a year. What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't," Erik said.

I made a mental note not to use Erik's name around this man. "Are we supposed to call you Christophe, or do you have another name you want us to use?"

Christophe shook his head. "Christophe is fine. Your name will have to be changed, though. Lillian, perhaps. Or Cynthia. What about Claire?"

"No," I said, finding that my voice was suddenly shaky. What did he know about Claire? "I'll choose my own name, thank you. I don't suppose you have something for me to dye my hair with."

"We'll leave the hair as it is," Christophe said, looking me up and down. "But you should lose the ring. As for you…" he turned to Erik. "We'll have to figure out what to do with that mask."

"I'm capable of disguising myself adequately," Erik said, annoyed.

"I'm not taking off my ring," I said.

Christophe sighed. "I should have known you two would be disagreeable." He reached down and untied the laces of his shoe, then drew it off and shook it up and down methodically. Something rattled around inside of the leather, something hard and metallic-sounding.

I fingered the syringe in my sleeve. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Erik slip silently out of his handcuffs.

"I would remain calm," Christophe said, without looking up from his shoe. "I have no intention of harming either of you."

"Then what precisely are you doing?" I said.

Christophe straightened up and held out an open hand. "Taking this out. Sometimes I get tired of it poking me in the foot all day."

He was holding a sharp metal dart. A small leather sheath lay on the ground of the carriage, next to the discarded shoe.

For a long moment, no one moved.

_To be continued..._


	5. First Morning

_Wheeeeeee... Chapter Five! Yay!_

_By the way, I dearly love reviews.  
_

_And thank you to those that have already reviewed! I really appreciated it. :)  
_

* * *

For a long moment we all remained still.

Then I pulled the syringe from my sleeve, Erik lunged, and Christophe got to his feet in a swift, graceful motion, gripping the dart in one hand.

I found that Erik was blocking my path to Christophe – he had gotten between the two of us without me even seeing him move. I blinked and tapped him on the shoulder.

"I believe I was closest," I said to his back.

"The lady has a point," Christophe said, but he didn't lower the dart. "And I believe I stated I did not plan to hurt either of you."

"Hand over the dart, then," Erik said.

Christophe thought for a second. "Perhaps not. And I wouldn't call it a _dart_, precisely."

"Would you rather I take it from you?"

I didn't see how Christophe was remaining so calm with Erik half an inch from his face, but he was. The undercover detective shook his head.

"I don't think you want to do that," he said. "You are still in the middle of Paris, and there are policemen patrolling the streets. They know you are in this carriage, and the driver has orders to head back to the station if there's trouble."

Erik considered the man in front of him. "You could be bluffing."

"I could be," Christophe said.

"And there's two of us," I said. "Only one of you, Christophe."

"Which is why I'd rather not hand over my weapon, Mademoiselle," he said. He took a long breath. "Why don't you both sit down? I really have no intention of harming you."

"Why did you take it out, then?" Erik said.

"It contains a fast-acting sedative, Monsieur," Christophe said. "Entirely necessary to the plan, I'm afraid."

He turned the dart, pressing the top of it in, and a slow cloud of pale white gas formed in the air around it, billowing up towards the ceiling. I slipped my syringe back into my sleeve, hoping Erik's form hid this action from Christophe, and turned to the window.

The latch resisted me, and the panes of glass were sealed with paint. I pulled my shoe off, ignoring the sounds of combat behind me, and rammed the heel into one of the panes. The glass held.

I tore a piece of fabric off my skirt, pressed it over my mouth and nose, and smacked the shoe against the glass again.

Nothing happened. The glass seemed impenetrable. The gas was seeping up around my shoulders; I could taste something bittersweet and noxious. It smelled like rotting vanilla.

"Put down the shoe, Mademoiselle," commanded a muffled voice in the distance. "Stop trying – _oof_-_"_

He was cut off. I assumed Erik had gotten ahold of him. I turned my attention back to the window, whacking my shoe against it in repeated blows. The makeshift weapon seemed heavy in my hand. Perhaps I needed more room.

I stepped backward, and the white gas instantly engulfed me.

_I am an idiot,_ I thought, as the sedative-laced air sank into my lungs and the world went black. _Hopefully Erik came up with a better plan than I did._

* * *

Unfortunately, Erik had not.

I woke in a hotel room, lying across a sofa, my feet propped up on a pillow. Christophe stood above me, looking down.

"Good morning," he said.

I sat up, and immediately winced. The inside of my head was filled with white-hot knives. "Where's Erik?"

"Asleep," Christophe said. He indicated the other side of the room.

Erik was draped across another sofa, breathing lightly. I put my hand down on the arm of the sofa and tried to get to my feet, but the whole world lurched in an awful manner and I had to sit down.

Christophe picked up a jug of water and poured me a glass. "Here, drink this."

I reached for the glass with my left hand, drank, and set it down on the side table before I realized what was missing.

Christophe backed away from me when I sprang to my feet.

"You stole my ring!" I said, snatching for the back of a chair before I fell. "How could you – give it back!"

The undercover detective, recovering from his surprise, came towards me. "I told you, it would be better if the Inspector didn't know you were engaged, Mademoiselle."

"Give it back!"

"Stop shouting," Christophe said, lowering his voice to a sibilant whisper, "or I'll be forced to silence you. Go sit down before you fall."

He'd taken off his jacket and was only wearing a linen shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. I saw that his milk-colored hands and forearms were corded with muscle. I took a few steps back and sat down on the sofa. My head felt like it might fall off my shoulders.

Erik stirred from across the room, and something – no, _several_ somethings – clinked together as he moved.

I got to my feet again.

Christophe shook his head at me. "Sit back down. Yes, he's handcuffed. I'm not taking any more chances with him."

He turned away as I sat back down (yes, my head was going to fall off), crossing the room to Erik. He drew something from his pocket as he stopped next to the sofa.

I stood up again, and Christophe glanced over his shoulder at me with a modicum of exasperation in his eyes.

"It's only smelling salts," he said. "Your fiancé's been asleep a little too long."

"Leave him alone," I said, as sharply as I could. "You've done enough."

Christophe turned completely around to look at me. "You seem to think you are in charge."

I set my jaw. "I'm his fiancée. And I am not here of my own free will, Christophe, so if you know anything at all, you know I'm being blackmailed into doing this assignment. Leave him alone."

"You think I'd disapprove of blackmail?" the detective asked.

"Most honorable men do," I said. I had the feeling that he was amused.

He was. He laughed a little, but he left Erik's side. "I see you have very clear ideas of right and wrong, Mademoiselle. Some men don't have the luxury of that. Please take a seat; your face is nearly green. I'll leave your fiancé alone for now."

I went back to the sofa. I was beginning to feel slightly nauseous. "What did you gas us with?"

"None of your business," Christophe said. "But nothing that will cause long-lasting effects. You may feel sick for a few hours. The headaches will cease after a week or two."

I couldn't tell if he was joking or serious. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the sofa, hoping to ease the pain in my skull. It felt like the knives were slitted evenly through my brain.

Then Erik coughed from the other side of the room, and I sat up.

"I would think," he said, between coughs, "that a sedative in gaseous form may not be the best solution. Different people require different doses."

"I realized that," Christophe said, glancing over at him. "I opened Irene's window after she collapsed. You, on the other hand, may have been under a little longer than you should."

Erik's handcuffs clinked together as he sat up, blinking several times as he glanced around the room. I looked at him, deciphering the mass of metal links crisscrossing his body – the handcuffs were connected to a long chain, which was connected to cuffs around the legs of the couch.

"Don't even think about lifting the sofa," the detective said, sitting down on the single bed in the middle of the room. "I still have this, and I'd hear you get up." He held up his cylinder of sedative.

I noticed that on the bed beside him lay a full-face mask, fitted with a long plastic tube. He must have put it on when he'd released the sedative in the carriage. On the floor besides the bed was a black suitcase, clean but obviously worn. What other surprises did Christophe have in store for us?

I gave Erik a look that said, "This is entirely stupid."

He sent me a look back that said, "I agree."

"So," Christophe said, rather too brightly, "why don't we go over the specifics of your assignment, Irene? You'll be masquerading as a French tourist on her honeymoon."

"So why am I missing my ring?" I asked the air. "It seems rather important."

"Ah, well, that's the catch," Christophe said. "You will be a _lost_ French tourist on her honeymoon. A lost, ring-less, recently mugged Frenchwoman, who is also missing her husband."

"And that makes more sense how?" Erik demanded, trying to reach up to scratch his head, and failing, because the chain connected to the sofa wasn't long enough. He dropped his hand disgustedly back into his lap. "You're making her look entirely vulnerable. Anyone could approach her. She'll be in constant danger."

Christophe smiled a bored smile. "I'll be only yards behind her. Anyone unrelated to the Inspector who approaches her will find themselves quickly distracted. And it will only be for a single day. If this one fails, I have other plans."

I shuddered inwardly to think of his other plans. This one sounded bad enough. "Where am I going to be stationed?"

"It had better be somewhere public," Erik said, before Christophe could answer. "You can't station her in a dark alleyway somewhere."

"I'm putting her in Piazza San Marco," Christophe said loudly. "Thank you for your advice. Mademoiselle, how good are you at pretending to be someone you're not?"

Erik managed to look away before he smiled. I stared at my feet. "I think I'm all right at that sort of thing."

Christophe frowned. "Am I missing something?"

"No," Erik said. "Must I wear these?" He held up his chains.

"Yes," I said, "must he? It's ludicrous. As if he's going to fling himself at you and…"

I had trailed off because the idea wasn't so far-fetched, and I thought that if I continued, Christophe would probably end up agreeing with my make-believe scenario. The detective, who wasn't paying attention to our complaints, yawned behind his hand.

"I'll take them off when I get back," he said. He stood up. "If you continue feeling ill, Mademoiselle, drink more water. And bring some to your fiancé, I'd rather not have him die. Fabre kept going on and on about how the Phantom's the _only _thing that's _possibly_ holding Mademoiselle Dubois here, and how you'd throw yourself off a balcony if he was injured or killed, and bleh, bleh, bleh."

"Where are you going?" I said, pointedly staying where I was. I wasn't going to leap to my feet whenever he told me to do something.

"Out," Christophe said, slipping his jacket on. "Don't think of escaping, either. I'll only be downstairs."

He opened his suitcase and laid the mask inside. Then he crossed to the door, unlocked it, threw the key to me (I caught it before it smacked me in the cheekbone), and went out, closing the door behind him.

* * *

I promptly got up and locked the door. I had no idea why he'd thrown the key to me - didn't he realize I'd lock the door?

"He must have another key," Erik observed, as I jiggled the handle to make sure it was locked.

"I know," I said. I lowered my voice. "But it will slow him down a little. Do you still have your lockpick?"

"No," Erik said, in a whisper. "Do you?"

I blushed. "Yes." I headed towards the bathroom, and Erik broke into quiet laughter.

"You hid it rather well, I presume," he said, his voice low with amusement.

I didn't turn to look at him; I was sure my face was very red. "Yes. Stop laughing. It's not that funny. And you don't want Christophe to return, so be quiet. I'll be right back."

* * *

The face that greeted me in the mirror was, unfortunately, my own. The eyes were caked with runny makeup; the pallid skin was dry, rough with dirt, and a little bloody. I turned on the water and splashed it on my face, hoping to erase some signs of my sad situation. How come people always looked so drawn and dirty when they were kidnapped?

"I know so much more about this sort of thing than I should," I told my reflection.

The floor creaked as I stepped away from the mirror and began undoing the buttons on the back of my dress. This was going to take a little while.

* * *

Erik was lying prone on the sofa when I came back out, his head on the flowery fabric of the sofa arm. The yellow sunflowers contrasted nicely with his dark hair.

"I fell asleep from boredom," he informed me, clearly awake.

I sat down next to the sofa, laid my head against his shoulder, and dropped the lockpick casually onto his chest. "_That's_ likely. And here you go."

Erik sat up, dislodging me. "Where was it?"

"Be quiet, dear," I said. "Do you need help?"

"No," he said. "But I wouldn't mind it if you went to see if the back window opens. I don't think Christophe checked it, unless he did so while we were both asleep."

"I'm sure he did, but I'll go look," I said. I climbed to my feet and crossed the room, wincing as the floor groaned loudly under my feet. "Christophe must be deaf if he can't hear us tramping up and down in here."

"He has no faith in our abilities to outwit him," Erik observed. "There."

He had been tinkering with his chains, but now he stood, and they dropped onto the sofa like so many useless pieces of metal. I blinked at him.

"Goodness, that was fast."

Erik half-smiled. "We had better hurry."

He looked around the room, and I turned my attention back to the window, opened the latch, and flipped the window up. It was wide enough for someone to slide through, if they didn't mind turning sideways and holding their breath.

A small side street ran between our hotel and the large building across the street, empty except for a produce cart, its owner, and a donkey. The sunlight fell broadly across the alleyway, glimmering off the hotel windows below, and my heart sank. Anyone on this side of the hotel would be able to see us leave.

"He's probably told the innkeeper we're criminals," Erik said, as he shoved a massive dresser across the floor to block the door. "I doubt we can leave the proper way looking like this."

"Which is why he hasn't gotten us disguises yet," I noted. "Do you have any of your things still?"

"I have the clothing on my back," Erik said. "You?"

"I have my lockpick, my knife, and a change of underwear," I said, shutting the window, but leaving it unlatched. "Now what?"

Erik strode to the bed and began rifling through the covers. "We need something to trade for money."

"I don't think he left his valuables here with us."

"Well, it's worth a look."

Sadly, Erik's search did not produce any stashes of money, jewels, or precious artifacts. And after we had opened every drawer, cabinet, and pried up a loose floorboard in the corner – and found that there was nothing _there_ either, we gave up. Erik went to the window and stood looking down at the fruit peddler, his face pensive.

"We're going to have to attack Christophe," he said. "We'll take his money after we knock him out."

"You get to strike the first blow," I said, remembering Christophe's muscular arms. "I'll finish him off."

"I said _we_," Erik said, but he was smiling, though faintly. He crossed to the door and crouched down next to the bookshelf.

"Go sit on the couch," he whispered.

I went to the bed, yanked the coverlet off, and threw it over the sofa where Erik had been lying. Christophe would be distracted for a moment if he thought someone was still there. The chains clinked pathetically as the fabric settled onto them. Had Christophe truly thought that they would hold Erik for long?

Then I went to my sofa and sat down, closing my eyes and leaning my head back against the cushions to give the scene some semblance of normality. I really didn't think this was going to work, but perhaps it would.

Besides, I didn't want to think about what would happen if it didn't.


	6. Nearly Noon

It seemed that we waited for at least two hours for Christophe to come back. We had to guess at the time, though, because there were no clocks in the hotel room. I passed the time by chewing on my fingernails, worried thoughts spiraling through my head. Erik passed the time by leaning his head against the wall and napping.

But when we heard footsteps, he stood, flexed his arms and hands, and stretched. I rubbed the back of my neck, winced at the soreness of my back – these couches were _awful_ – and closed my eyes. I didn't fancy seeing Christophe's face when he got the door open.

The door rattled when Christophe tried to turn the handle.

There was a thump as he put something down on the ground. The door rattled again, harder this time. I kept my eyes shut.

_Bang. Rattle. Bang. Bang. Bang bang bang bang._

"I think the lock is broken," I heard him say, his voice quiet from behind the door. He seemed to be talking to someone. "Yes, it's jammed. Do you have a crowbar?"

"A crowbar?" inquired a quieter voice. The owner sounded bewildered. "What for?"

"Never mind," Christophe said. He stopped rattling the door. "I'd step over there if I were you. Send for the police. Tell them two prisoners of the Paris police department have escaped, and that Christophe Janvier needs immediate assistance."

Rapid footsteps, and then a sound like an explosion. I jerked to my feet, my whole body trembling from the shock, and Erik, who had leaped quickly away from the door before the bang, came to stand beside me.

"I forgot about the gun," he said, but I couldn't hear him at all. The room had fallen unnaturally silent; I could hear nothing. I blinked confusedly at him. What was he saying?

Erik shook his head in despair, pulled me towards the window, and shoved it open. Then he helped me onto the sill – I reached upward for the ledge above – and crawled through after me.

He had barely squeezed through when the dresser against the door shuddered, warning us of Christophe's imminent arrival. Erik kicked the window shut with his foot, clambered onto the ledge above us, and lifted me over. I wasn't tall enough to reach the ledge on my own.

* * *

We continued in this fashion for a few minutes longer, Erik pulling me up over ledges, me scrambling to my feet, before Christophe joined us on the side of the building. He was three or four stories down, but he looked down at the alleyway, and Erik and I had just enough time to climb over the side of the roof and vanish before the detective looked up.

I slipped immediately – the roof was slanted, and the black shingles that covered the top were as slick as if coated with oil. Erik snatched for my arm and missed.

His fingers brushed along the side of my forearm, and I toppled backwards.

Luckily for me, Erik's reflexes were superb from years of running along thin metal walkways – he reached again, so quickly he was really only a large black smudge on the edge of my vision, and caught hold of my wrist. His grip was strong: my wrist ached as he yanked me back onto my feet.

"Don't do that anymore," he gasped, tugging me with him to the top of the roof. I said nothing, only tried to remember how to use my lungs, clutching hard on his arm for support. My chest felt tight and useless.

"He's right behind us."

"We're faster," Erik snarled, dropping into a crouch and pulling me down with him. "We're going to slide down the roof and onto that one."

He was pointing at the building across from us: its roof lay just under the hotel's, providing us with a perfect landing. I looked at the shingle-covered slope we had to slip down to get to safe ground, and my stomach lurched.

"No, don't panic," he said, catching my wide-eyed gaze. "Here, I'll just pull you with me. Close your eyes."

"That – would – be worse," I gasped. "Just go. I'll be right behind you."

"You first," Erik said. "I think I can hear him coming."

I let go of his arm, took a quick breath, and stood. My feet instantly refused to obey me. One instant I was upright – the next, I was down on my bottom, sliding awkwardly over the rooftop, my skirts swirling up around me. Everything ached as I bounced away.

Then I slid completely off the roof, and dropped painfully onto the flat roof below. But I had landed on my feet.

Erik followed within seconds, more gracefully than I had done. I scrambled to the edge of this new rooftop and looked down at the street, gripping the stone wall for support.

"Busier down here," I said, raising my voice over the noise of the wind. Below the building ran a long street, packed with carts, carriages, and people. There were peddlers lined up and down along the boulevard, shouting their wares and prices as loudly as they could. Families passed, children skipping alongside their parents, holding hands. "We should try and vanish into the crowds."

"Easier said than done," Erik said, but he joined me at the edge of the roof. "You're right; it's our best plan. Look – a ladder."

He indicated the metal struts that ran down the side of the building. I hoisted myself onto the wall, turned around, gripping Erik's shoulder for support, and stepped onto the first rung. I had begun to step down to the second rung when there was a _crack_, and Erik threw himself to the ground.

* * *

He'd reached up and grabbed my shoulders as he fell – I fell on top of him, smacking my head against the stone wall.

Everything wavered into gray, then cleared. I sat up, struggling to get to my shaking, useless feet, and found that Christophe was standing on the opposite rooftop. He was pointing his gun at the man beneath me.

I reacted without forethought, turning and crouching over Erik to protect him, my hands fluttering over his body as though to keep him safe, to keep him still.

Erik _was_ still, though, quite still, and nothing moved except for the silent rise and fall of his chest – and the blood blooming like a scarlet flower through his shirt.

For a long moment I didn't know what had happened.

Then I pressed my hands to the wound, praying that the pressure would somehow stop the blood. Christophe had shot him.

"Erik. Erik, can you hear me? Wake up, Erik. Talk to me."

I thought I saw him blink, but I wasn't sure. I pressed harder, leaning all my weight on his shoulder.

There was a rattle of shingles as Christophe slid down the roof behind me. "I'll summon a doctor for him, Mademoiselle. Kindly offer me your hands first."

I didn't listen to him. My hands were already dappling with blood. Erik's wound was severe.

"Find me a towel," I demanded. "Some kind of thick cloth. Now."

"I did tell you not to try to escape," Christophe said, his tone remonstrative. He crouched down next to me, produced a pair of handcuffs from his jacket, and snapped one of them around my right wrist. I ignored this.

"Give me your jacket."

"What?"

"Give it to me," I repeated. "Give it to me, or I promise I'll do everything in my power to ruin your investigation. Give it to me now."

"It's only a flesh wound," Christophe said, but he slid an arm out of his jacket and began to fumble with the other sleeve. "He won't die of it."

"I'll determine whether or not it's serious after I stop the bleeding. Thank you."

I took the jacket, folded it twice, and held it against the wound. Christophe sighed as the blood sank into the fine leather.

Erik's eyes fluttered open. "Irene?"

"I'm quite all right," I said, before he could ask. "How bad do you feel?"

"As if some incompetent detective shot me," Erik said. His eyes slid past me to Christophe. "I don't suppose you would have shot her too, if you'd missed me."

"I don't shoot women," Christophe said. "I'll take over now."

"No," I said. "I don't trust you. Go send for a doctor."

"I am clearly not going to leave you two alone up here," the undercover detective said, exasperated. "And there's nothing to handcuff you to." He produced a syringe from his pocket – _my _syringe – and held it under my nose. "Move aside."

"You may as well inject _him_ with it," I said, indicating Erik with a nod, my hands still pressed against his shoulder, "because if you stick me with that needle, you'll have two bodies to move back into the hotel and everything will be twice as difficult. If you won't call a doctor, I will."

Christophe pulled the syringe away from me and put it back in his pocket before he spoke. "You promise not to run away?"

"I won't," I said, even as Erik's eyes found mine. I knew what he wanted me to do. "You have my fiancé. I'll be back as soon as I find a doctor."

Christophe sighed. "Then go. If you don't return within the hour, I'll drop him off the roof."

I blanched at this calm pronouncement. "What?"

"You heard me," the detective said. "Or I'll inject him with a lethal dose of sedatives. You have an hour. Go."

Erik's green eyes glared at me. _Make a run for it_, they said. _Do it. Don't worry about me._

I glared back at him. _I'm not leaving you._

"Go," Christophe said, unsnapping the handcuff from my wrist. "The doctor's in room 203."

I lurched to my feet, turned away from Erik's white, pleading, furious face, and ran for the hotel roof.

* * *

Five minutes later, a highly confused, half-awake doctor stumbled down the rooftop after me, his tousled white hair falling into his eyes.

"I'm afraid I don't quite understand," he was saying, as I slid down after him, my hands shaking. "I'm afraid I don't really know what you are trying to say. Where is the man? Who is he?"

"My fiancé," I babbled. "He's on the roof over there. He's bleeding from a gunshot wound in his shoulder. You have to help him."

"I'd love to," the doctor said, his voice high-pitched and warbling, "but I don't quite understand…"

His voice wavered away as he landed. Then he said faintly, "Oh. I see."

I slid down next to him, teetered for a moment, and managed to stay on my feet. The doctor strode away across the rooftop, crouched down next to Christophe (the undercover detective stood up and marched towards me) and set his black bag down on the rooftop. Erik turned his head toward me, and I looked down at my feet, unwilling to meet his gaze.

"You're coming with me," Christophe said, catching my arm in an iron grip and turning me around. "Walk."

I resisted, but I was no match for his strength. His muscles seemed to be carved from stone.

"Let me stay," I snapped, trying to pull away from him, but his fingers continued to cut into my arm. "I have to make sure he'll be all right."

"I've had enough of you ordering me around for one day," Christophe said, his tone sharp. "Hurry up."

He pushed me up onto the rooftop, shoving at my legs, and I crawled up the side of the roof, grimacing as the edges of the shingles cut through my skirts.

When I got to the top, I turned and looked down at the detective. He was still climbing up the side of the roof, turning slightly away from me as he glanced back at Erik and the doctor. There was a gap of two feet between this roof and Erik's, and the ground below was five stories away. All I had to do was push him, and we'd be free.

Just one small motion…

I only had to take one step, and lift my arm, and gently propel him forward.

My heart thudded painfully against my ribs, once, twice.

I bit my tongue.

And then I turned away, my whole body trembling at the thought of what I'd considered doing.

Christophe followed in a second's time, unaware that his life had been so close to flickering out completely, his hand resting casually on his gun.

He gestured for me to climb down first – I swallowed hard, put one foot down on the window ledge below, and began the long descent down the side of the hotel.

* * *

Christophe, with practiced skill, handcuffed me to the pipe under the sink in the bathroom, the pipe that was steel, and that was welded into the wall. I sat on the dirty wooden floor, my skirts already dampening with years of accumulated muck, my back against the porcelain toilet. Sweat lay wetly across my forehead. Christophe had opened the tiny, hand-size window above me, but the wind blowing through was the temperature of hot soup.

"There," he said, as he straightened up. "And hand over the lockpick, unless you'd rather have me search you."

"Erik has it," I said.

Christophe looked at me. His eyes were cool, calculating, exacting.

He nodded. "Good."

He blew out the candle next to the tiny mirror on the shelf, and the bathroom fell into murky darkness, unbroken except for the single patch of sunlight that lay across my bare, grimy toes. Christophe had taken my shoes as a deterrent in case I tried to escape again.

I closed my eyes, trying to remember if I still had my knife, or if I had let Erik borrow that too.

But then I heard the detective step away. "I'll come check on you in a few hours. Good afternoon, Mademoiselle."

My stomach growled plaintively as the door clicked shut. Neither Erik nor I had eaten since dinner last night. It was probably close to noon by now.

I wiggled my feet up under my skirts to protect them from sunburn and tucked an arm around my waist. The side of my head ached where I had hit it against the wall, and I was marginally sure my wrist was going to be ringed with bruises by nightfall. And Erik… his wound had been bleeding profusely.

For a long time, I sat there, staring blankly up at the ceiling, random terrified thoughts bubbling around in my head like some sort of awful witches' cauldron. The room grew hotter, and hotter, and hotter. Sweat dripped down my face and collected in the hollows of my shoulders; drenched my back and gathered in my skirts.

I leaned the side of my head against the stinking, burning wall next to the toilet, and let a few hot tears slip down my cheeks. We weren't getting out of this one, it seemed. Erik was wounded, and we were both exhausted, and the whole of Paris knew we were criminals. Christophe was a large barrier – we weren't getting away from him any time soon, and by then we'd be in Venice and completely lost. Neither Erik nor I had been there before in our whole lives; how could we escape from an undercover detective who didn't mind shooting people to keep them where he wanted them?

I closed my eyes against the depressing thoughts, swallowed away the tears, and concentrated on forming a plan.


	7. Afternoon

It was the crash of fists against the door that woke me. I had dozed off despite myself, and when I opened my eyes, the tiny bathroom was shuddering as someone banged incessantly, over and over, on the little door.

"Christophe!"

I coughed, trying to clear the dryness from my throat. It didn't work. I couldn't even summon up a few syllables.

"Christophe! Open up! It's the police!"

I croaked out, feeling as if the words were ripping through my throat, "He's not here," but the man outside didn't hear me. He continued to bang on the door.

Then there was a bang as a window closed, and a calm voice said, "I'm right here, you idiot. Stop banging on the door; you'll have the whole hotel up here in five minutes. I've recaptured both of them."

"The Phantom too?" demanded the man.

"Yes, him too, as I just said. Don't remind me of Fabre's orders; I haven't forgotten them. 'Lose the Phantom and you'll lose the girl, bleh, bleh, bleh.' Go back and tell him everything's under control."

"You're sure. And where's the girl?"

"Locked in the bathroom, where I put her."

"The Phantom?"

"Still crawling over the rooftop with some other policemen. Go on, go away. Everything's fine."

"Then why'd you call us up here?" grumbled the man, but he went away, and I heard the door slam behind him.

* * *

Christophe opened the bathroom door ten minutes later, and I instantly covered my face with both hands to block the light that streamed into the cell. The cuff around my wrist jangled loudly; my eyes watered from the brilliant flood of sunlight.

"I'm glad to see you've followed instructions," Christophe said, his voice louder than I would have wished it to be. "I brought food and water."

"Don't expect me to thank you," I whispered. My voice still wasn't working properly.

"Drink some water," Christophe ordered. He set a glass down next to me, and I lowered my hands slowly from my face to pick up the cup, blinking hard.

He dropped a bag on the ground at my feet, whipped out a match, struck it, and lit the candle next to the mirror. I drank thirstily, greedily. My throat ached as the cool water slipped down into my stomach.

"I'll get you more," the detective said grudgingly, as I put the empty cup down and reached for the bag.

"Where's the Phantom?" I demanded, as I tore open the paper bag to find a greasy cheese and ham sandwich. I wasn't going to use Erik's name around this man. "Is his wound better? Where have you put him?"

"He's in the bedroom," Christophe said.

I tried to look around him, but he was blocking the doorway with his body.

He pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it, sticking it in a corner of his pale mouth. I noticed that there were blue shadows in the hollows under his eyes. A swath of light freckles ran over his nose and spread in a brownish smattering across his cheeks.

I bit into my sandwich and leaned my head back against the wall as I chewed, thinking. "Where are we going from here?"

Christophe smiled colorlessly. "Nowhere you need to know about. Eat your sandwich."

I wanted to disobey him, but I knew I needed the nutrition. "How bad is the Phantom's wound?"

"Are you really going to keep calling him that? Do you really not know the name of the man you're marrying?"

Christophe was suddenly frowning down at me, displaying more emotion than I'd seen from him all day.

"Why do you care?" I asked, biting off a chunk of ham and cheese. This was interesting.

"Tell me his name," the detective said, still glaring down at me.

"No," I said. I took another bite. "Seems to me you know a little less about us than you'd like."

Christophe took the cigar out of his mouth and smashed it carefully on the counter, brushing ashes onto the floor. A few drifted to land on my skirts.

"Very well," he said, unsmiling. He reached down, lifted my water glass, and turned on the faucet to refill it. I watched him as he put it back down on the floor, still eating my sandwich.

"I hope you brought food for the Phantom," I said.

"No," Christophe said. He watched my expression change from serene to wild, his eyes empty. "He'll be better to control if he's hungry. All I have to do is wait."

"He's injured," I said, dropping my sandwich as if it had burnt me. "You have to feed him."

"No," the detective said, crouching down next to me, "but _you_ have to eat. Finish your sandwich."

I folded my hands in my lap and looked away.

"I once read a book about force-feeding," Christophe said, picking up my half-eaten sandwich and turning it over in his hands. "It sounds very painful, undignified, and emotionally exhausting. I'd rather not have to employ the tactics required to feed someone against their will."

He had a point.

"Your fiancé wouldn't want you to quit eating only because he isn't," the detective went on.

"Perhaps you could feed him and see what happens," I said.

"Or you could eat your sandwich."

I stared at a crack in the wall. "Feed him. I won't eat until you do."

"Eat your sandwich."

The crack was thicker than I had thought. It ran from behind the cabinet up towards the shelf. Tiny tendrils of moss had sprouted in its deepest section.

"Irene. Eat the sandwich."

If I squinted, the moss looked as though it was growing. I thought I could see teensy yellow flowers blossoming at the tips of the green tendrils. Maybe someday the wall would split open from the humidity, and the moss would spread to fill the new hole.

"Eat the sandwich."

The wall was filled with hundreds of cracks – the line I'd first seen was only one of many, winding through its brothers and sisters with abandon. Moss ran through most of the others; some tendrils yellow, others brown and dying. But only the first crack had the yellow flowers sprouting in it.

Christophe's voice had faded into the distance.

After a long minute of silence, he dropped the sandwich on the paper and reached forward to shake my shoulder.

I pretended not to feel his touch.

"Snap out of it, Irene," he said, his voice hard. "Eat your sandwich."

"Feed the Phantom," I said.

Christophe drew his lips back in a soundless snarl, leapt to his feet, and banged out of the bathroom.

I picked up my sandwich and bit into it, listening to Christophe rip open another paper bag in the bedroom. He'd lost that battle easily enough. Perhaps I could get him to lose another.

"Really?" I heard Erik say, his voice stronger than I had thought it was going to be. Maybe he was all right – maybe his wound hadn't been that bad. "Ham sandwiches? What kind of hotel is this?"

I bit down on my laughter before Christophe could hear me. I didn't think it would help the situation.

"Eat it," Christophe snapped. "It's all you're getting for a long time. And drink your water. Your fiancée is too persistent for her own good."

"Let her out of the bathroom," Erik said.

"No. Be quiet and eat." He crossed back to the bathroom and looked in at me, his eyes focusing for a moment on my face, then tracing down over the rest of my body. "Are you hot?"

"Yes," I said, reaching for my water glass. "I don't suppose you care, though."

Christophe pulled the handcuff key from his pocket, considering me. "You can trade places with your fiancé."

"I'll stay," I said, pulling my feet up underneath me and wiggling back against the wall as far as I could. I didn't want Erik to be in here; I was sure the sweltering heat would only make him worse. "I don't mind."

"True love," Christophe mocked, dropping the key back into his pocket, and I relaxed. He wasn't going to make Erik sit in here. _Thank God._ "Well, suit yourself. Finish your sandwich, and then drink the rest of your water. I need you alive."

He blew out the candle, closed the bathroom door, and the familiar darkness swept in around me once again. I fumbled for my sandwich, found it, and stuffed the rest of it haphazardly into my mouth. The bread was dry as death, and the cheese was older than I would have liked, but it was food.

I hoped Erik wasn't wasting his strength arguing with Christophe instead of resting.

* * *

An hour passed. I dozed against the wall, half-dreams flitting away under my eyelids. _Christophe shooting Erik… Erik with a sword, running at him, green eyes narrowed with his intent… And then I was holding the gun, the cold metal burning into my skin, my finger wrapped around the trigger… I lifted it – I pointed – I pulled back and the world exploded._

"Good afternoon," Christophe said.

I sat upright so fast that my head smacked the wall. He'd opened the door and lit the candle; he stood above me, his hazel eyes passing disinterestedly over my face.

"What time is it?"

My voice was cracked and dry. I pressed a hand to my throat and found that I was drenched in sweat. My head ached.

"Nearing three," the detective said. He pulled the handcuff key from his pocket. "You're switching places with your fiancé whether you like it or not. I'm not having my mark die in a moldy bathroom just because she won't listen to orders."

I covered the cuff with my hand and drew my knees up to my chest. If he was going to try to get me out of here, I was going to make it as difficult for him as possible.

Christophe knelt. He took hold of my wrist, dug a finger between the fragile bones, and my arm screamed in pain. My fingers let go of their own accord, and the detective delved the key into the cuff and snapped it open.

He still had hold of my wrist: he pulled me to my feet when I tried to tug away, and yanked me easily out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

My eyes watered at the blast of sunlight. Christophe didn't stop walking, even as I reached up to wipe at my eyes – he propelled me forward onto the bed and promptly snapped my cuff around one of the wooden beams in the headboard.

"Sit still," he snapped, as I yanked away from him , rubbing at my injured wrist. "You next."

He turned away from me to Erik.

Erik was sitting against the wall, his shirt gaping open to reveal a swath of white bandages, his eyes cool. He looked at me. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon to you," I said, realizing what he was doing. I adopted his cheery tone. "Nice weather today."

"Soon it will be spring," Erik said, as Christophe wrapped a hand in his shirt and pulled him to his feet. His arms were cuffed behind his back, and a short chain ran from them to a metal loop in the wall. "I thought I heard the birds singing this morning when I woke up."

"Shut up," Christophe snarled, pushing him into the bathroom. "I've heard enough from you to last a century."

There was the rattle of chains, and I heard Erik say: "I find it difficult to sympathize with you. Perhaps if you reconsidered your plan for your life – and mine, and Irene's – I would understand, but I'm afraid currently I am unable to understand your plight-"

Christophe slammed the door on him, his face clenched in annoyance. I stared fixedly at my foot. Laughter would be the wrong choice at this time.

"How do you _stand_ him?" the detective burst out, glaring madly at me. "How could anyone imagine _living_ with that man?"

My lips twitched uncontrollably, but I managed to keep the rest of my expression neutral.

As long as Erik continued to badger Christophe, it appeared that we would have a better chance of escaping this situation.

And I could do my part, too. I yawned. "I don't take it you have extra clothing for me? And I want another glass of water."

Christophe shook his head. "No extra clothing."

"No water, either?" I said.

The detective looked at me. "You can have some water."

He turned to the bathroom door, took a deep breath, and opened it. As he went in, I heard Erik say, "Perhaps you see the errors of your ways now? Are you here to rectify the wrongs you've done? Or maybe you wish to confess, to let another hear the darkest things you've done. I have extra time, and ears – you can speak to me."

"Be quiet," Christophe snapped.

"One would think that even a man as twisted as you would see the error in his ways and make better life choices. May I suggest a life choice you can make at this very moment?"

He sounded like a salesperson. I grinned. Christophe slammed the bathroom door and marched over with the water glass, his eyes wild.

"Here. And don't think you're getting any more for at least an hour."

I tipped the glass down my throat, gulping the water away, and handed it back to him. "Please? I'm still thirsty."

The detective held the glass in one hand, looking down at it with a feverish expression. His nostrils flared unbecomingly.

Then he turned, and began the slow walk to the bathroom, his steps quiet on the wooden floor.

I watched him with satisfaction. Perhaps, by the end of the day he'd be so sick of Erik and I that he'd do something drastic. Perhaps he would break, and we'd be able to escape.

The hope that I'd thought was gone was returning in full force.


	8. Second Night, Second Morning

By nightfall, the hotel room was silent.

I was curled under the blankets, my head on the pillow. My arm was still cuffed to the headboard, and the metal circle dug painfully into my wrist whenever I tried to shift into a more comfortable position, so now I lay still, hoping to doze off.

The empty water glass was on the side table.

Christophe had dragged a chair into the center of the room and was sitting in it, his head bowed over his gun. He'd been cleaning it, but now he was finished, and he hadn't moved for a few minutes. His lowered face was closed and empty.

Erik was still in the bathroom. The door stood ajar, allowing Christophe to watch both of his prisoners at once.

I swallowed thirstily and turned my head towards the bathroom, trying for the umpteenth time to catch a glimpse of Erik. Christophe had arranged it so that while the half-open door allowed him to see his prisoner, it did not allow me to see Erik at all. As usual, not even Erik's foot was visible. I wondered how he was faring. He hadn't spoken for the last fifteen minutes.

As I thought this, Christophe looked up from his gun and into the bathroom. "Still alive?"

Erik said nothing. Maybe he had dozed off.

Christophe didn't seem to require a reply. He looked back down at his gun, then up at me. He frowned. "We still have to come up with a name for you."

"We have a while before we get to Italy," I said, and coughed to clear my throat. I needed more water. "Besides, I don't feel up to doing anything regarding the assignment while my fiancé is languishing in the bathroom."

"I fed him," Christophe said. He went back to stroking his gun. "I don't think you need much more than that."

"Let him stay in here," I said.

"No."

"I'll remember that when we're in Italy," I said, trying to prod him into action. "That you let the Phantom huddle in a dark, stinking, heated bathroom and did nothing."

"I suppose shooting him didn't bother you as much?"

"It did," I said. "It does. Very well, have it your way, then. Just don't expect me to be agreeable when we get to Italy."

Christophe set his gun down on the floor and stood up, rubbing his hands together to rid them of the polish. "I will, though. Remember that the rest of your fiancé's life depends on you completing the assignment. Perhaps you've forgotten about the pending trial."

"Perhaps you've forgotten your orders," I said. "I believe Fabre instructed you not to injure him. And what have you gone and done? Shot him, and within a single day, too. I'm sure he'll be so pleased with you when you get back."

Christophe pushed the chair against the wall with his foot, considering.

"You're doing a rather poor job," I went on. "It's odd that you managed to become a detective at all. Perhaps the only reason you're here with us is because they want to get rid of you. Did you know they're sending you on a suicide mission, or are you trying not to think about that part? The Inspector knows we're coming. And while he may care a little about me, he sure as anything doesn't care about _you_. You'll be doomed as soon as you walk into Venice."

"Of course," Christophe said quietly, looking up at me, "I'll have you."

I didn't know what he meant. Of course he'd be with me, but how would that-

"Didn't you know I'm coming in with you?" he said. "Weren't you wondering who your husband would be? You _are_ on a honeymoon, my dear."

I felt my stomach clench.

"Yes," the detective said, smiling at me, "I'm going to be your husband. So lie down and be quiet, before I decide to make our honeymoon a little more realistic."

I shook my head violently. "You've forgotten that the Inspector knows about Erik and I. He'll never believe I married _you_."

"Oh, but there is where you've gone wrong," Christophe said. "You don't understand at all."

He sat back down in his chair, lifted his gun into his lap. "You see, Mademoiselle, I was chosen for this assignment because I'm very good at disguising myself. I'm also of the same height and build as your fiancé. Fabre sent Erik along with you because he knew I would have a better chance of pulling it off if I had time to study the Phantom's characteristics."

I held my breath.

"Yes," Christophe said, not looking up, "I'll be the Phantom when we get to Venice. And not even the Inspector will know better. After all, I have everything I need for my disguise." He nudged his suitcase with his toe. "And I'll take his mask, too. The only person who'll know that I'm actually Christophe Janvier is you."

"You can't take his mask," I said, stupidly. "It's his. And of course I won't pretend you're my husband. The whole idea is bizarre. Insane."

"You won't have a choice," he said. "You see, I don't share Fabre's fervor for justice. I don't really _care_ how I get somewhere, as long as I get there. You'll do what I say, or I'll simply kill the Phantom. I can always tell Fabre he died trying to save you, and no one will ever know better."

My lips felt numb. "I'll tell," I burst out. "I'll tell them, and they'll believe me."

"You may not make it back either," the undercover detective said. He caressed his gun with a finger. "Everyone knows how vindictive the Inspector is. I'll simply say I couldn't get to you in time, that he shot you before I could stop him. It will be easy."

He stood and blew out the candles on the windowsill. The room fell into darkness.

"Goodnight, Mademoiselle."

* * *

When I was sure he had gone into the other room, I pressed my face into the pillow, trembling all over. He hadn't been bluffing. The coldness in his eyes had been real.

When the assignment was over, he was going to kill us both.

* * *

In the morning, Christophe woke me by unlocking the cuff that held me to the bed. The sharp clicking noise startled me awake: I rolled away and sat up, my heart pounding.

"Good morning," he said, smiling at my wide-eyed stare. "Get up. You and your Phantom are going back into the carriage."

I touched a hand to my aching head – whatever he'd gassed us with was still giving me headaches – and stared back at him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

"Get _up_," he repeated. "Put your shoes on; they're in the corner over there. And do something about your hair. It looks awful."

I got off the bed, walked to the corner, and slipped my shoes on, my back to him as I laced up the ties.

His shoes clicked away as he left the room. I turned to make sure he was gone, and saw that the gun he'd been polishing last night was lying on the edge of the bed.

I slipped off my shoes, pulled my hair out of my face, and tied it back securely. I could hear Erik talking loudly to Christophe in the bathroom – something about how the toilet made a terrible pillow. I looked carefully around once more.

Then I crossed to the bed and picked up the gun.

I had no idea how to use this thing, but I knew what I could do with it. Firearms were never supposed to be dropped in the water, nor thrown out of hotels. The second idea was too dangerous – it could fire when it hit the ground - but the first would work. I only had to find the water pitcher Christophe had been using yesterday.

I looked wildly around the room, aware that the window of time in which I could act was quickly shrinking. I could hear Christophe snarling at Erik, snapping at him about his mask.

"And it's clear your name isn't the _Phantom-_"

Erik said something quiet and cutting. The gun in my hands was cold, noxious against my skin. I pivoted, staring around for the pitcher, praying it would emerge – and then I realized…

It was probably in the other bedroom; Christophe might have put it there and forgotten about it.

Turning, I crept past the bathroom, my heart in my throat, the gun hidden at my side.

Christophe said quite loudly, "Did I tell you what will happen once we reach Venice? Or maybe I'll let Irene." His voice seemed to echo throughout the room; I cowered as I fled silently into his bedroom, my hands trembling violently.

But the pitcher was on the table beside his bed.

I flew to it, dropped the gun inside with a splash, and stepped back, covering my mouth with my hands. Would it work?

The door crashed against the wall as Christophe barreled inside, his white face contorted, his mouth open. He was bigger than I had thought – he reached for the pitcher with a massive hand and flung it against the wall. White and blue pottery shattered over the beige rug.

I ran without thinking: the bathroom door opened under my hands and I flung myself through, slamming it behind me. The lock clicked.

* * *

Erik had been sitting on the floor, but when he saw me, he wrenched his cuff free from the pipe (I gaped, hardly believing the strength he must have used to do it) and stood upright. He caught hold of me and pulled me against him, turning so that he was between me and the locked door.

I clenched his hands desperately in mine, shaking, but filled with an inexpressible feeling of relief.

"I threw his gun in the water," I whispered.

I could feel Erik laughing. "You brave girl," he whispered. "You wonderful, brilliant woman. Of course you did."

"It's the only one he has, I think," I said.

We could hear Christophe rampaging around in the bedroom: something shattered, followed immediately by a stifled cry of pain.

"Idiot," Erik hissed. "Oh, and I still have your lockpick. Here, before he comes back."

He'd freed himself from the cuff - no wonder it had broken away so easily from the pipe.

"Erik," I said, taking the lockpick from him and pushing it up my sleeve, "he plans to kill the two of us after he finds the Inspector. And he says he's going to disguise himself as _you_ – he says he's very good at disguises – he says he and I have to – have to pretend-"

The tears dripped down my cheeks and clogged up my throat. Erik ran a gentle hand under my chin, tilting my face upwards. His green eyes were hard and fierce in the candlelight.

"I won't let him do anything to you," he said. "His gun is gone. I'm free. You have your knife, correct?"

Swallowing, I drew the sheathed knife from my other sleeve and handed it to him. "What are you planning?"

"A straight fight," Erik said, setting the sheath down on the bathroom counter. "Fast, easy, deadly. We're leaving today."

* * *

We planned it very carefully. Erik was to leave the bathroom first, carrying his knife; I would follow with the broken pipe from the sink. Erik would immediately engage Christophe with his weapon, and if Christophe attempted to activate his cylinder of sedatives, I would simply dive in, scoop it up, and throw it out the nearest window.

Erik had torn a large section from his already-shredded shirt, folded it several times, and tied it around my mouth and nose. He'd also lent me his mask – I tucked it over the left half of my face to hold the cloth down. It was surprisingly hard to breathe. I hadn't realized how stifling the porcelain was when worn against one's face.

I'd tried to get Erik to wrap a piece of cloth around his nose and mouth too, but he had refused, insisting that it would only distract him and make it harder to concentrate on the fight.

When he clicked the lock open, I picked up the lit candle (we'd agreed that it may come in handy), got a good grip on my pipe, and took a long breath through the thick white fabric, blinking as my eyelashes brushed the inside of the mask.

"Ready?" I saw Erik mouth at me.

I nodded. _Ready._

He whipped the door open, and was instantaneously gone.

I followed within a heartbeat.

Christophe and Erik were already deep into their fight when I entered the room: two men struggling desperately for the upper hand in a battle one of them would lose, both silent and breathless in their concentration. The cylinder Christophe had used earlier lay against the foot of the wall, forgotten. I went towards it, picked it up, and crossed to the window.

I had tossed it out and turned back around when Christophe stepped backwards, trying to get away from Erik's long upward jab, and stumbled into the wall. He pushed off with his free arm and stepped sideways. The knife in his hand flashed in the sunlight.

Erik tripped him, smashed the hilt of his own knife into the side of the detective's head, and let the fainting man slide helplessly to the floor.

With a disgusted look, Erik kicked Christophe's knife from his lax hand – it flew across the floor and under the bed – and knelt, reaching for the handcuffs scattered on the floor next to the bed. He snapped the metal bracelets around Christophe's wrists, took the key from the detective's pocket, and stood.

"The cylinder's gone?" he inquired, rubbing absentmindedly at his bandaged shoulder. Sweat glistened on his forehead and above his upper lip. I crossed the room (setting the candle and pipe down on the table as I passed) and caught hold of his hot hand.

"Yes, and don't do that. You'll make your wound worse. Is there anything else we can tie him up with?"

Erik looked down at the detective. He shook his head, but he was beginning to smile. He drew a hand across his forehead and took a long, deep breath. "No, but we can take his badge."

I felt a grin spread slowly across my face. "His badge. Yes, we can take his badge. As soon as we get out of here, no one will know that it doesn't belong to us. We only have to escape the hotel, show it to whoever we need something from, and they'll hand whatever we need over. We'll be detectives, after all. People have to listen to us. Oh, and here's your mask."

I pulled it free from my face, tearing the cloth off at the same moment. I held the porcelain disk out to him, but Erik only stared blankly at it.

"What?" I said.

"I don't need that," he said, shaking his head. "I've just thought of something else."

He picked up Christophe's suitcase, flipped open the latch, and dumped the contents onto the bed. Wigs, makeup, false teeth, and even a set of fake mustaches tumbled out onto the sunflower-patterned bedspread. I raised my eyebrows.

"No, you aren't," I said, grinning as I realized what he planned to do. "Really?"

"If Christophe thought he could pretend to be me," the Phantom said, picking up a container of hair gel (and wrinkling his nose), "I can certainly pretend to be _him_. And I promise you I'll do a much better job than he did."

And of course he did.


	9. Afternoon on the Train

_And now, for a much longer chapter..._

_I welcome reviews!  
_

* * *

Christophe lay bound, gagged, and blindfolded on the bed, wrapped liberally in long strips of white sheets. His shoes were gone, as was a chunk of his hair, his badge, and his jacket. He was still unconscious.

Erik, now attired in Christophe's missing clothing, his hair two shades lighter, stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, applying skin-colored makeup to the left side of his face. He was humming.

I stood by the window, looking down into the alley. I'd taken a bath, but I was in the same grimy gown I'd been wearing for the past two days. The skirts brushing the backs of my bare legs felt damp and dirty. Christophe hadn't thought to buy extra clothing for us; he'd been too busy dashing around sedating people and shooting his gun.

The gun was in the holster on Erik's belt, but it was entirely useless. Apparently the water had caused more damage than I'd thought it would, and Erik wasn't about to try to fix it. He was only wearing it, as he had said, because Christophe always did, and it would be best to continue doing so if he wished to portray the detective correctly.

"Otherwise," he's said, "I'd throw the d-"

"Erik," I had said, gently. "Please."

"Otherwise," Erik began again, glaring into the mirror, "I'd throw it in the nearest gutter."

So he'd kept it because he had to. I turned away from the mirror and went to stand in the door of the bathroom, watching Erik transform himself into Christophe. The back of my neck tingled when he looked at me: he had everything down perfectly, even the detective's cold, detached expression.

"What do you think?"

"I think," I said, "I think… I think it works. I suppose you're putting your mask in his suitcase?"

"_My_ suitcase," Erik corrected me. "And you'll have to start calling me Christophe. Yes, I'm going to. What's our story? What happened to Erik? What did I do with him, and why are you still with me?"

I considered. "Perhaps Christophe left you – I mean, perhaps _you_ left _Erik_ up here. Maybe Erik was injured and you decided you didn't need him following you and me around. Oh, I don'tknow. I can't fathom how the man's mind works. Tell me what you think."

Erik shrugged one shoulder and turned back to the mirror. "How would you feel about that? If Christophe – no, if _I'd_ left Erik here, bleeding from the wound in his shoulder and probably unconscious."

"I'd be furious," I said. My fingers curled around the doorjamb. I dug my nails into the wood. "I wouldn't be with him willingly, that's for sure. And I'd be searching for a way to escape, any way at all."

"Do you think he'd sedate you?" Erik asked. He ran his fingers through his hair, frowned at the floppy mess he'd created, and reached for a hairbrush.

"No, I think he'd find that too cumbersome – he'd have to carry me out of the hotel if he did that. And it would be noticeable. I think he'd have found a way of making me obey him. Not that I would, of course."

Erik said, "Don't worry about that. Just pretend. Pretend he's won. Pretend he has a hold over you. How would you walk? How would you look at him? Would you ever say anything different, do anything unusual?"

I leaned my head against the doorjamb, thinking. "I think – I think if he left you up here to die, and I had no way to save you, I'd be numb. Especially if he just decided you were too much of a hassle- say you attacked him and lost. I think he'd give up on keeping you alive and just shoot you. And if you were dead I don't think I'd be doing much of anything. And I think I'd stop reacting to him. I think… I think I'd stop thinking in general."

"Let's say I tell you to do something – remember, I'm Christophe. Say I tell you to go wash your hands. What would you do? Keeping in mind, of course, that Erik is dead."

"I'd wash my hands."

"What if I told you to-"

"No, wait," I interrupted. "Yes, I would be doing whatever Christophe told me to, but I'd still have my _boundaries_. Say he told me to – oh, I don't know – attack someone – I wouldn't do _that_. I have my limits. Furthermore, if you _were _dead in a hotel somewhere, I'd be actively searching for a way to get back to you, just to make sure. Yes, I'd be pretending to follow Christophe's orders, but I'd also be thinking of ways to escape. And even if you were dead up here, I wouldn't ever stop trying to get away from him. I would never let him win."

Erik put down the hairbrush and looked at me.

"I agree," he said. "You don't give up."

I nodded, and let go of the doorjamb. "Neither do you."

I didn't want to think about him dying anymore: the memory of him laid out and cold on a wooden table rose up and slammed me in the face. I staggered inwardly, forcing the image away.

We looked at each other.

Then Erik crossed the tiny bathroom to the door, and curved his arm around my waist, curling his other hand around the back of my head. His fingers tangled in my hair. I put both hands on his shoulders and drew myself up to kiss him.

A few seconds passed, and then we broke apart, both breathing hard.

"I think," I said, trying to ignore the way that my lips were tingling, "I think that we should go downstairs."

Erik nodded, his eyes on me, his lips parted. "All right. I'll make sure Christophe is secured."

Neither of us moved.

"Oh, forget about Christophe." I said, aware that my voice was shaking. "Just _kiss_ me."

Erik lowered his head and caught my mouth with his. My bones seemed to melt; my skin flushed with the heat of his touch.

It was much later by the time we left our room.

* * *

Down in the foyer, the innkeeper hardly looked at us when we came up to the counter. Erik dropped the money we owed on the counter (Christophe's suitcase held more than just disguises), took hold of my arm, and steered me through the foyer and out into the bright, blinding sunlight.

The fruit peddler was selling apples to a little boy with black hair. He looked up at us as we passed the alleyway, and his eyes widened.

"Apples!" he shouted suddenly, frightening the boy so much that he jumped away in shock, his bony knees shaking. "Fresh apples! Come buy your apples here!"

Erik glanced down at me (I winced at how easily he mirrored Christophe's empty, expressionless eyes). "Do you think-?"

"He certainly seems to know you," I whispered back. He'd thrown his voice; no one but me had heard him. "Let's go."

I meant that we should walk away, but Erik didn't realize this. He turned, tugging me with him (but much more gently than Christophe had done, and he was careful to avoid the bruises ringing my upper arm), and we crossed the filthy cobblestones towards the peddler.

The hotel was in a desolate, depressing part of the city: a beggar crouched against the fence surrounding the hotel yard, rubbing his cracked and blistered hands together, a tin cup perched on the knee of his patched, discolored trousers. The young boy buying apples was thin and underfed – his cheekbones stuck out against his skin like spokes on a wheel. And the peddler's beard was crusty with spit and tobacco. His cart leaned precariously to one side, though he'd tried to fix the slant by jamming a rock in the place the missing wheel had been. As we neared him, I smelled something sweet and yet sickening, like poisoned, rotting flowers.

My stomach turned over. I bit my lip, trying to ignore the surge of nausea in my gut.

The little boy looked up at the two approaching strangers. His pale face whitened. He hurried away, clutching his bag of apples against his chest with tiny, stick-like fingers. He passed the beggar, nodded politely, and broke into a run.

"Two apples," Erik said. We had reached the cart. I looked away from the rapidly disappearing boy and into the brown, weathered face of the peddler man.

He grinned at me: he was missing a tooth, and his lips were so chapped they were peeling at the corners. "Two apples is two francs."

I smiled shakily back as Erik handed over the money.

"Here."

The peddler fished around in his basket, hunting for the right apple, and I looked away from his grasping, dirty fingers.

"Fabre said you'd be earlier."

I looked up in surprise.

Erik curled his lip at the peddler's murmured comment. "Fabre. What does he know?"

"He said you'd be here by ten. I bought tickets for eleven. We'll be late for the train if we don't leave now."

"Then let's leave," Erik said, his voice so cold, so Christophe-like that I shivered. "Hurry up. We don't need the apples."

"And the girl? Where's her fi-?"

Erik leaned against the cart and bent his head towards the peddler's ear. He whispered something, and the peddler nodded.

I looked away, clenching and unclenching my hands, pretending to focus blindly on the fence. This ruse only worked if I played my part.

_Erik is dying_ upstairs, I told myself._ I have no way of getting to him. Christophe's won. I am in hell._

"Mademoiselle."

I didn't look up at Erik. He took hold of my arm, turning me towards him, and I still refused to look up. I trained my eyes on my slippers. Lavender satin and white embroidery, flowers against a dark sky.

"Remember what I said," he hissed through clenched teeth. "While we're in public, you act like a normal person. Stop staring at the ground and look at me."

I set my jaw, swallowed hard, and looked up defiantly into his face. Erik stared back at me, and then he smiled.

My stomach turned over again. He looked very like Christophe.

The peddler chuckled quietly, and Erik turned towards him. "Seems like you have her under control. Oh, and that over there's James."

He indicated the beggar against the fence. "He has the tickets. Fabre's orders are that we both come with you. He wants to make sure this one doesn't escape."

He was talking about me as though I was some sort of animal. I stood very still, looking down at the basket of apples on his cart. If Erik was Christophe, and I was his prisoner, what would I be doing right now?

Before Erik – no, _Christophe_ – could stop me, I reached forward, snatched up the basket, and flung its contents over him and the peddler.

He was too surprised to react. I'd aimed carefully, making sure the apples rained down mostly over the peddler – I couldn't risk hurting Erik's injured shoulder. I pulled out of his grasp, whirled, and raced down the alleyway, my slippers smacking over the cobblestones.

I managed to trip directly in front of the beggar, who leapt to his feet and caught me by the shoulders. He shoved me into the wall, and Erik was suddenly right behind him, his expression half-wild with rage.

_Think_, I thought desperately at my fiancé. _You're Christophe. Act like it._

The beggar laughed soundlessly into my face, his breath smelling of a thousand horrible rotting monsters. I coughed and turned my head away as he released me, stepping back so that Erik could grab my arms.

He pulled me forward (very gently, but with enough speed so that it looked painful) and said, "That's enough, I think. And we have company now, so I'd like it if you behaved, Irene."

The beggar and the peddler, who'd followed Erik over, grinned at each other. The peddler reached up and pulled away his beard to reveal a smooth, baby-like chin. He brushed at the dirt on his face, and it fell away; ran his fingers through his hair to shake out the dirt collected there, and peeled a thin layer of yellow plastic from his teeth. He smiled: he was a handsome young man of about twenty-five, and the only thing wrong with him were his eyes. They were as dead and as old as petrified wood.

The beggar went through a similar transformation, slipping out of his patched clothing and discarding his battered hat. Underneath he was dressed in middle-class clothing: a nice jacket, a linen shirt; clean, neat breeches and polished shoes.

It was clear that both of them carried concealed weapons: the false beggar's right jacket pocket bulged strangely, and the peddler's hip was distorted by a large, thick lump.

"Let's go, Messieurs," Erik said coolly, looking down the alleyway. He had noticed their weapons too; his hand tightened momentarily on my arm. "We have a train to catch."

The four of us went down the alleyway, leaving behind the apple cart, the discarded disguises, and the hotel. Erik's thumb caressed the inside of my arm. He was trying to comfort me. I slid my eyes up to look quickly at his face.

He was wearing Christophe's cold smile. We hadn't been discovered yet.

* * *

The train station was as crowded, dirty, and smelly as the hotel alley had been. I stood beside Erik in the line to board. His hand was wrapped around mine: the crowd had pressed close enough around us to hide this from James and Henri (who had been, respectively, the peddler and the beggar). The two of them had disclosed their names in a whisper to Erik; apparently each had chosen new pseudonyms for this assignment.

Erik had recovered my engagement ring from Christophe's suitcase, and I was wearing it once more. The cool metal clasped gently around my finger in a familiar embrace.

Someone coughed behind us, coughed again, and again, and again. I closed my eyes. We were still in the same line we'd been in for nearly a half hour, and my head ached. A woman in a large blue hat peppered liberally with ostrich feathers swayed back and forth in front of us, her suitcase bumping my leg every time she moved. I scowled at her back, resisting the urge to shove her.

"Are you all right?" Erik said, his voice pitched very low. I pulled my hand away from my forehead – I'd been trying to rub the pain away.

"Still recovering from the sedative, I think," I whispered. "How are you feeling?"

"Nervous," Erik whispered back.

"You're doing wonderfully. Besides, Christophe's contacts don't seem very-"

"Tickets, please," said the station master. The woman in the large blue hat had moved; we'd reached the front of the line.

Erik handed over our tickets. The stationmaster looked at them, stamped them, dropped a set of keys into Erik's waiting palm, and looked past us to the next people in line.

"Tickets, please."

I slipped my hand free from Erik's – James was waiting for us at the train, leaning against the railing in a nonchalant fashion, and I didn't want him to see our clasped hands.

He nodded at Erik, glanced cursorily at me, and pulled open the door for us to enter. Erik went through first. James stepped in after me.

The car was dark and stuffy; the smell of tobacco and unwashed clothing hit me as soon as we entered. I pressed a hand to my nose and walked faster. Erik went down the aisle, stepping past suitcases, handbags, around people arguing about luggage. A woman and her husband sat quietly in opposite seats, staring out their windows. I wondered, as I passed, if they'd been married long.

The woman looked up at me as I stepped past her seat: large dark eyes met mine for half a second, then fluttered away, hidden under pale eyelashes.

I tucked my hands together in front of me and hurried down the aisle, struck by the intensity of her glance. Perhaps she thought I seemed lost, or frightened, or recently accosted. My ripped skirt trailed miserably behind me across the dusty floor, and the front of my gown was stained and faded from when I'd crawled across the hotel roof. I needed new clothing desperately, or I was going to stick out like a sore thumb.

There were so many people crammed together on this train. I could hardly walk down the aisle without bumping into someone or their belongings. And there were so many strange things, too. I could have sworn an elderly woman was holding a tiny stuffed peacock in her lap, its eyes bright black beads in a face of feathers. A man with multicolored hair yawned absentmindedly out his window, blue and green streaks curving through his grey hair like oil on water. Two women in white dresses sat close together in one seat, their arms around each other, both staring with huge eyes at the man in the seat across from them. I followed their gaze, but found nothing out of the ordinary – he was simply sitting there, reading his newspaper, a finger underlining each sentence as his eyes swept along the words.

My head throbbed again – I caught my breath, for this pain was more severe than earlier ones had been, and James jabbed me in the back with a hard knuckle.

"Keep moving," I heard him hiss. "You're going too slow."

I kept my head down and walked faster, hoping this was the correct reaction. A few more steps, and I passed the last of the seats: we had entered the berths. The door between the two cars closed.

Ahead of me, Erik fished the keys out of his pocket and stopped at a door. He unlocked it and pulled it open: the room number was 23, shining letters on a gold plaque. James pushed me forward, stepping on my skirts as he did so. I pulled away from him, yanking the torn fabric of my clothing out from under his feet.

He smiled: a dazzle of white teeth in his bronzed face. His eyes were excited, lit with an inner joy.

"Don't touch me," I said. My voice was stronger than I'd thought it would be – I'd been trying to find a tone somewhere between submissive and angry, but I'd failed.

James reached forward and put a damp hand on my bare shoulder, digging his nails into my skin as he did so. His other arm came up around my waist.

I caught hold of his wrist and pulled his hand away, nearly blind. The world was red and burning: I stepped through the haze, shoving his clinging arm away, and slapped his face with every bit of force I could summon. My hand smoked with the aftershock.

He hadn't expected that. He stood there, shaking his head slowly back and forth. Blood ran in a narrow line from the corner of his white mouth.

I felt Erik take hold of my elbow and pull me into the room.

"Are you hurt?" he breathed, though he slammed the door so hard the floor shook. His hands fastened on my shoulders, holding me away so he could look me up and down for injuries.

I pushed a hand against my face, shaking. My shoulder throbbed. "No."

"I'll kill him," he said. His voice was ice and fire. He struggled to master himself, his breathing harsh.

"You can't," I said. "But you could speak to him – Christophe wouldn't have let any of his contacts put their hands on me."

"Don't _say_ that!"

His voice choked off.

I turned in his arms and put my hands on his shoulders, careful to avoid his injury. I looked into his brown face. "Erik…"

"I keep losing you," he said, avoiding my gaze. "I keep – I can't help you. I'm not doing anything right, and you keep getting hurt."

"Stop it," I said, tightening my grip on his shoulders. "Erik, stop it. You're not doing anything wrong – it's not your fault. Don't blame yourself for other people's transgressions. You got us away from Christophe. We're free because of you."

Erik's eyes were wet when they met mine. I looked into the liquid green of them, and my thoughts slowed into uselessness. _How could I persuade him? What words could I say?_

But then he swallowed, ran a quick hand over his forehead, and stepped back.

I let my hands slip from his shoulders.

"We should go to the dining car."

"I need something else to wear," I said. That had been an abrupt subject change. "I don't suppose there's anything in Christophe's suitcase."

Erik turned towards the full-length mirror on the wall, running an expert eye over his disguise. "He had an extra cloak. You can put it on over your dress."

I went to the suitcase and opened it, my back to him. Men were so difficult to talk to. You expected them to say one thing, and then they went in a completely different direction. How was one ever supposed to figure them out?

* * *

While I sewed up the hem of my skirt, washed the back of my dress, and generally did anything and everything I could to look halfway respectable, Erik sat on the foot of the bed, examining the inside linings of Christophe's suitcase. He had told me he was hoping to find papers about the case, or a notebook of names, anything that would help us.

The firelight touched the features of his face, illuminating the lines of his nose and jaw, hiding his eyes in shadow.

I watched him silently, wondering what the end of today would bring.


	10. Evening

_I would dearly, dearly love some reviews. Pretty please send me some?_

* * *

An hour later, I'd found out that the train was going to Venice.

We were in the dining car, eating dinner. Erik sat next to me, and across the table sat Christophe's two contacts.

James had an annoying habit of clinking his silverware against his plate as he ate. My head was aching again, and every time he snapped the tines of his fork against the porcelain I fought the urge to kill him.

Henri, on the other hand, was eating hardly anything. He sat there watching me, his empty, immovable gaze sending ripples of tension up my back. I traced a finger down the handle of my knife, pretending to be unaware of his attention. The food on my plate lay untouched.

The three men had been talking about politics, but now they were finished, and I could tell Erik was waiting for one of them to speak. We were hoping for more information about the case – there had been no papers, nothing at all about the copyist or the Inspector in Christophe's suitcase.

Erik sank his fork into a chunk of roasted chicken, sliced a chunk off with his knife, and took a precise, careful bite. I picked up my glass and drank a little water, praying that it would calm my stomach enough for me to eat.

The chicken and garlic mashed potatoes smelled heavenly, but every time I looked down at the food my insides curdled, choking me with nausea. I could only swallow the water without my stomach rebelling. My fingers trembled with hunger.

James put down his fork, chomping on his meat, and glanced out the window. We were speeding by a meadow. Outside, the pale green grass faded into the gold of afternoon sky. The edges of James' face bloomed with light.

I stared absentmindedly at him, wondering why Fabre had chosen him for this job, wondering what he knew about the case.

He turned his head to look back at me, smiling a little. His teeth flashed like a hungry wolf's, a mirror expression of a man I'd known before. _Luke._ I set my glass down and looked away at the other tables.

The woman and man I'd seen earlier were sitting at a table nearby, neither of them speaking. The woman drank lightly from her wine glass, her long fingers delicately wrapped around the thin stem. Her eyes were on her husband. He pushed his chicken around his plate, slumping in his seat, his head bowed. He looked much too tired to be here, traveling. I wondered what he'd been doing before he boarded the train.

"Fine night," James said jovially, crossing his knife over the fork he'd laid down on his plate. He winked at me; I'd glanced at him when he'd spoken. Inwardly cursing him, I looked down at my plate in feigned boredom.

Erik grunted.

"Remind you of anything?" the contact went on, looking around at the other tables. "The train, the people? The time of day?"

I held my breath, watching the water shiver in my glass, waiting for Erik to say something. But what could he say? _Yes, I remember? Yes, I know exactly what you're talking about?_

Erik looked across the table at James. "Perhaps we can reminisce later. We _are_ in public."

"No one can hear us," James said, beginning to sound petulant. "You've changed, Christophe. You used to be more accommodating, more interesting, more _fun_. What's happened to you?"

Henri looked up from his plate, his dark eyes cool, clearly interested in hearing Erik's answer.

My stomach flipped over in another wave of nausea, startling me. I brought my napkin to my mouth, pressing it hard against my lips, and closed my eyes. Maybe it would pass; the others had.

Erik sighed. "I did not come here to exchange memories, James. My sole purpose in being on this train is to get where I need to be. I _do_ have an assignment to finish."

James drew his mouth down in a sulky manner and stared out the window.

Henri returned his attention to his food, his elbows propped on the table. He still hadn't eaten anything.

It seemed the near disaster had been averted.

I took the napkin away from my mouth and carefully laid it out on the table, smoothing out its creases with shaking fingers. There were distinct lines of pain developing in the shivering pulp of my brain: one ran like a railroad spike between my eyeballs, spearing their backs in points of agony. Another line squirmed at the top of my head, seething up and down like a faulty, red-hot wire. My insides churned and wiggled like lumpy pudding; I tried to breathe deeply.

My lungs suddenly seemed to collapse: the plate in front of me went fuzzy. The mashed potatoes resembled white jelly; the meat was a shapeless blob of yellow-brown.

I blinked, desperately trying to clear my vision, but nothing happened. I looked up, dropping my hands into my lap, clenching them together.

Henri was a faceless blur on the opposite end of the table, and the waiter that paused to refill my water was merely a tall white shadow, bending over with a shining object in his insubstantial arms.

"Well, if you don't want to talk," I heard James say, as the shadow of the waiter went away, "we should get down to business. What are you planning on doing with her when we get there?"

He was obviously talking about me. I blinked in his general direction, wishing I could see the expression on his face. I had a feeling it was rather smug.

My stomach curdled again.

I looked down at the table, hoping to be able to see my water glass, but my vision was deteriorating quickly. The table seemed only to be a long goldish white smudge, dotted here and there with unintelligible masses of gray and silver.

Erik hesitated only an instant before answering. "I'm taking her straight to the Piazza. Did Fabre give either of you further orders regarding the case?"

He was digging for more details, but we both knew he was edging into dangerous territory. Christophe had to have known a considerable amount about the case; he had to have known more about James and Henri, but we knew nothing.

I closed my eyes, hoping that a moment's rest would bring them back to normality. I'd lowered my head discreetly – I thought Henri and James would assume I was ignoring Christophe.

I opened my eyes again, and saw that the ring on my left hand had similarly changed, from a distinct object into a shining metallic blur. My hands were fleshy lumps against a greenish mass – my skirts.

There was something wrong with me; something very wrong. I needed a doctor. I needed to rest.

I needed to leave the dining car now.

Henri said, the sound of his unfamiliar, accented voice startling me, "He gave us a few papers about the rest of your job. I'll give them to you when we get off at Venice." He pronounced the ends of his words as if he was singing: his accent was unmistakably Italian.

_Ah_, I thought. _So we __**were**__ going to Venice._

"We?" Erik said. His tone was neutral, almost bored. He set down his silverware: I heard the clink of knife and fork on porcelain.

A long pause, during which my stomach threatened to erupt through my mouth and over the tablecloth. I held my breath, biting my tongue. My eyes watered, probably from a combination of nerves, nausea, and exhaustion. I knew I wasn't going to last much longer.

"Yes," James said. "Henri and I are coming with you."

"For what purpose?" Erik's voice was cold.

"I'll be acting as lookout in the Piazza. Henri will be translating for me – you know I have no Italian."

"Fabre's orders, I presume."

I assumed one or both of the contacts had nodded, because the space of time usually given for an answer came and then went without anyone speaking.

"Aren't you going to eat?"

It was Erik speaking, but I heard Christophe's voice. He was talking to me.

"I'm not hungry," I said, trying to indicate by my tone that I really wasn't – that it wasn't merely a ploy to bother him.

James chuckled. "Perhaps the train food doesn't appeal to her delicate sensibilities, Christophe."

"Have some water, at least."

I shook my head.

Then I heard Erik pick something up, and something cold and smooth dropped between my hands: my water glass. I lifted it with shaking hands, drank deeply, and pushed it in the direction of the table. I let go.

There was a gasp from the other side of the table, but nothing shattered. I assumed Erik had snatched the glass up before it fell.

"Please be more careful, Mademoiselle," he said. "It would be bothersome if you dropped things everywhere."

I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the seat, pretending to ignore him. But I was really trying to catch his attention: it was only a matter of time before my stomach revolted entirely.

* * *

I never knew exactly what happened next. Perhaps James had called over the waiter and asked for wine, or maybe it had been Henri. In either case, within the space of fifteen minutes, Henri was drunk and vomiting over the tablecloth and inadvertently splattering James in the process. James, horrified beyond all belief, had punched him.

My headache had reached such an excruciating point of agony that I was incapable of understanding much of went on: everything was a horrible slanted blur, and people only seemed to be eerie, giant smudges against a dark background of incomprehensible shapes and sounds.

Erik had to physically pull me to my feet to get me out of the booth after Henri vomited. James was still trapped at the table, as far as I could tell: I didn't understand much of what happened after I'd heard him cry out in disgust (after that awful gagging, tearing noise of Henri emptying the contents of his stomach) and then the sound of James punching him – flesh on flesh, bone on bone.

Erik had taken me with him away from the table. I had the sense we were standing near a wall, and that there was a table on our right. He was speaking to a waiter.

"No, she's only ill. Nothing's wrong. I think you should attend to those two men other there, though."

"Aren't you – I mean, Monsieur, do you know them?"

The poor waiter was evidently trying to find someone else to clean up Henri's mess and remove a furious, smelly James from the dining car. I closed my useless eyes and leaned my head against Erik's shoulder.

"No, they just showed up at our table," Erik lied blandly. "I have to take my fiancée back to our room. Excuse me."

He stepped away from the waiter, causing my head to spin horribly as I opened my eyes again. He'd slipped his hand under my arm, and though the ground was supposed to be flat and unmoving under my feet, I kept stumbling, forcing him to support most of my weight.

"Are you alright?" he whispered, as I clutched at his arm, trying to find my footing. Maybe if I closed my eyes, I'd manage to get out of here faster.

"No," I whispered, only able to get that one word out. I thought we were almost out of the dining car: the noises of people talking were dying down, and the smell of hot potatoes and meat wasn't as strong, and the moving white blurs – waiters, I assumed – weren't as frequent.

Then the noise stopped completely, and my feet met carpet. I felt Erik fumbling in his pocket.

"We're here," he said, after he'd withdrawn the key from the lock. "It's alright, dear. We'll be inside in a minute."

The door clicked open. I opened my eyes.

I could see practically nothing. The furniture, the wallpaper, the fireplace – all of it blended together in a chaotic, sickening miasma of colors and shadow. My stomach rose into my mouth; my head screamed with pain. I closed my eyes and wrapped my arms around myself, bending over as the nausea cut me in half. The sickening pain ripped through me like a fire.

"Irene!"

Erik's voice was faint and faraway. I let the pain carry me away on a stream of blackness.

* * *

I woke the first time to find a man bending over me, his cold hand on my forehead.

"How are you feeling?"

The words seemed oddly slurred when they left the man's lips. I stared up at his blond hair, greenish eyes – _Christophe_.

"Christophe," I mumbled, my fingers fisting around the damp sheets. "He's not here- you're not him-"

But I couldn't remember why. He was supposed to be here, wasn't he? We were in a hotel room– where were the handcuffs? Where was Erik? Was he still locked in the bathroom?

The man who looked somewhat like Christophe ran a hand over his face, and it changed. Parallel scars grew across his cheek, cutting into his lip, tracing around his eye. I closed my eyes, completely lost.

"Irene, it's me," said the Phantom's voice. "Me, Erik. I'm disguised as Christophe, remember?"

His voice was beautiful, so beautiful. I listened to it without understanding.

Everything was cold – his freezing fingers brushed my forehead again, and I shivered. My teeth chattered in my skull, clattering sickeningly in my head… _The pain… Oh, God, make it stop. Please, please, make it stop…_

I thought I could hear my words echoing in the darkness.

"Sleep, dear. Just sleep. It will pass, I promise. I'm here."

His voice was warm, cutting through the ice in my head – I stopped trying to fight the darkness, and slipped away.

* * *

When I woke the second time, I found I was lying in a tangle of sweat-stained sheets, my feet bare. I was only wearing my shift – my dress lay draped over the back of the chair in front of the fireplace. The logs were black and cold in the hearth.

I brushed strands of sticky hair from my cheek and dragged myself up onto an elbow. My head instantly broke into shards of pain: I closed my eyes and bit down hard on the inside of my cheek, breathing through my nose.

When the pain had passed sufficiently for me to sit up, I did so, swinging my feet off the side of the bed and onto the cold floor. The room was empty; the bathroom door stood ajar. I looked at the dress on the armchair. Maybe I would be able to get to it without Erik coming in.

"Irene?"

I turned, jerking the sheets up around my bare shoulders. My head swam for a moment; I'd moved too quickly.

"Erik."

He was standing in the door of the bathroom, his face scarred once more, holding a towel in one hand and a pitcher in the other. He'd changed his clothing: he was wearing blue trousers and a ruffled white shirt I'd never seen before – they had to be Christophe's. His blondish hair was damp. "Are you feeling better?"

A memory flickered at the corner of my mind: Erik, bending over me, telling me he wasn't Christophe.

I flushed. "Oh. Yes, I think so. Who – my dress-"

It was Erik's turn to flush.

"I apologize," he said. "Your fever was very high – I thought it would be best."

He stepped into the room and put the pitcher and towel down on the table. "Do you feel – how do you feel?"

I touched a hand to my aching head, considering it and the nausea bubbling in the depths of my stomach. "Better than before. My eyes are working again."

"What?" Erik said, looking confused. "What do you mean?"

I explained. By the time I'd finished, his expression had changed from confusion to horror to anger. "And I didn't even do anything," he said, pacing up and down across the carpet. "I'm so sorry, Irene. I thought you were playacting; I thought you were trying to – oh, I don't know. I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," I said, yawning. My eyes burned, and my head wouldn't stop spinning. "I'm going to lie back down."

"Here," Erik said, dropping to his knees beside the bed, supporting me with one strong arm, his fingers curling around my shoulder. "I'll help you."

I leaned against him. I was so tired, and everything was so dizzy. The buttons on his shirt were hard, stabilizing, against my ear and neck. I could hear his heart beating, feel his chest rise and fall. He was solid, a rock in a sea of seething, boiling water.

He kissed my forehead. I closed my eyes, reaching out with one hand to pull weakly at his shirt.

"Don't leave," I whispered.

He shifted me in his arms, turning and lowering me so he sat against the headboard and my head rested in his lap. "I won't." His fingers ran through my hair, smoothing its hot tendrils back from my face. "Get some sleep, sweetheart. I'll be here when you wake up."

Comforted by this knowledge, I slept.


	11. Third Morning

It was near morning when I woke the final time. Erik was sleeping, his head tilted back against the headboard. He'd washed his face: the scars lay light and shining in the darker skin.

Sleepily, I gazed up at him, lost for a moment in contemplation. There were shadows curving under his eyelids, soft bluish purple swaths of exhaustion above his brown cheekbones. It was good that he was resting. He clearly needed the sleep.

The dawn filled the room with a gray, colorless light. Sometime during the night I'd slipped away from Erik and into the middle of the bed: the sheets were curled around my feet in a cool embrace, and my head was nestled in the crook of my arm.

I sat up, blinking in the stillness of the room. Christophe's suitcase stood against the far wall, a smug, faded square of black leather, privy to more dark secrets than anyone other than the original owner would ever know. My green dress lay supine and lonely across the back of the reddish armchair, my slippers on the seat of the chair, half-hidden under the skirts.

My head felt much better, as did my stomach, but my tongue and mouth were furry with thirst. I stood, cautiously so that Erik would continue to sleep, and made my way into the bathroom, lifting my dress from the chair as I passed. The carpet was soft against my feet; the tiles of the bathroom floor were clean and cold.

* * *

I rinsed out my mouth and drank a few handfuls of the freezing water, relishing the feeling of freshness. Then I washed my face and arms, closed the door, and was about to lift the dress over my head when I saw what Erik had done to it.

The bodice, hem, and sleeves had been embellished with tiny, precise flowers: pale yellow thread woven into swirls of intricate petals and stems. I sat down on the edge of the counter and stared at the embroidery. When had he had time to do this? Last night?

As I turned it over, a note fell from one of the sleeves. I lifted it from the tiles, turned it over.

_Irene,_

_I love you._

_E._

And beneath the writing was a sketch, formed with a few short strokes of a pen. A woman turning to look out a window, her hair tumbling from a chignon, one hand resting on the curve of her hip. It was me, and somehow Erik had captured both his feelings and mine in the moment he'd drawn me: I seemed to be lost in my imagination, pensive, but I was beautiful in my unawareness.

I read the note again, letting the words fall over me like a cloak.

Then I slipped the dress over my head, folded the note tenderly, and hid away in an inside pocket in my skirts. It was because of them that Christophe had failed to find my lockpick: there were ten compartments in all, and each was well disguised. I had added them after our extended stay at the Inspector's house.

_The Inspector…_ I hadn't thought of him for some time since Fabre had brought him up at the police station; I'd been too preoccupied with Christophe and his interest in hurting us. I smoothed my hands down the front of my gown, smiled as my fingers brushed the embroidery. My thoughts turned to the case.

It was clear enough that the copyist, whoever he (or she) was, was missing. This was probably not a lie. And if the Inspector _had_ kidnapped him, than he was in great danger. Well, he was in great danger if he resisted doing whatever the Inspector wanted him to do. I supposed the Inspector would have forced him to copy more of Raphael's works, or have set him to creating copies of other famous paintings. If what Fabre had said was true, and this copyist's works were good enough to pass off as the originals, than the Inspector would soon have a very good black market business going.

This meant that the police would have started their investigation, if they'd been intelligent enough to do so, by looking for valuable paintings that had suddenly appeared in the hands of several well-off Venetians. Or perhaps they would have kept their eyes open for new art dealers – the Inspector would never have appeared in Venice himself – he'd have sent one of his underlings to handle that sort of thing. And he'd have sent several large people along with him to keep an eye on the paintings and make sure the dealer was bargaining for the correct prices.

And when one put all of this together, if the Inspector was truly back, meant several things. One, Christophe wouldn't have simply tossed me into the middle of the Piazza and hoped the Inspector would see me; seeing as the Inspector wouldn't have been there, this would have been completely useless. Two, we were looking for a large group of people: an art dealer, along with a carriage driver and several thugs. And three, the copyist would be wherever the Inspector was: the Inspector wouldn't have risked his prize's rescue or escape.

It seemed that Christophe's plan would have failed miserably. I tried to think: what would he have accomplished by leaving me in the Piazza for a day? Also, why were Henri and James coming with us? How could they have helped anything by loitering nearby and listening to people talk in Italian?

Why would I have needed to pretend to be mugged, and why would anyone have believed my pathetic little story, especially with a muscular Christophe sitting by, declaring he was my husband? Wouldn't they have assumed that he'd protect me? What precisely had he been hoping to get out of this situation?

And what had James meant when he'd said, "Doesn't this remind you of anything? The train, the people?"

What would Christophe have remembered, if he'd been there?

The questions were sound, and now I finally began to feel I had something to stand on. We knew the copyist had been taken, but we didn't know why, or by whom. What Erik and I needed to do was to begin our own investigation in Venice. And we needed to lose the contacts as soon as we left the train.

* * *

Erik was crouching in front of the fireplace, poking at the logs, when I came into the bedroom. He still wasn't wearing his mask, though he'd reapplied the makeup to cover his scars, and I smiled. The mask's remoteness bothered me, although I still hadn't told him this. Perhaps I would bring it up later today.

"Erik," I began, "I've just thought of something-"

But I broke off, because he stood, dropping the poker on the floor. It hissed as it hit the rug; it hadn't cooled from the fire, and the colorful fabric began to char immediately under the heated steel.

"The poker, dear," I said, forgetting what I'd been about to say. "The rug is smoking."

"Curse the poker," Erik said, quite calmly, and picked me up in his arms. "Curse _everything_. We are taking today off."

I looked up at him from my new angle. He needed to shave. "Off?"

"As in avoiding everyone and everything," he said. "Off, as in no more work. No more running, no more masquerading, no more talking to people we hate. Agreed?"

"I'd shake your hand," I said, grinning and dropping my head against his shoulder, "but I can't, as both of yours are occupied. I agree most emphatically, dear."

The rug was now most definitely on fire, and I was about to point this out to Erik when he turned and stamped on the flames, muttering under his breath. I caught something about things never working properly, and grinned still wider. The fire went out, but the whole room stank of smoke. I fanned the air, coughing.

"Where's the window?" Erik groaned. "How come nothing is ever where it should be?"

"And what will our day off consist of?" I said, after he'd deposited me in a chair to go find a window. "I would like to eat some food, of course. And there are no books here."

Erik wrenched open the window, and the thump of wheels on railroad tracks clattered into the room. "No violins, either." He yawned. "I could get breakfast, though. Do you want bacon?"

"And eggs," I said. I raised my eyebrows at him. "And don't put pepper on mine, you always put too much. And I'd like some tea."

Erik raised his own eyebrows. "Still as commanding as always, I see. Does her Highness require anything else, or shall I depart to gather her breakfast?"

"We would like some toast and jelly, also," I said, using the royal plural.

Erik bowed ironically, dropped a kiss on the top of my head, and tried to sneak past my chair. I leapt up and threw my arms around him. "I just remembered! Thank you for my note! And for the embroidery on my dress!"

He tried to squirm out of my embrace (I'd trapped his arms) but was unsuccessful, and so he was forced to give me a _real_ kiss.

I waved at him when he went out, hiding behind the door so no one would see me – it would be difficult to explain to the contacts, if they saw us, that I was now in the habit of waving cheerily at my captor when he left.

Erik winked at me and went down the corridor, his hands in his pockets.

* * *

I was lying on the rug in front of the fire, writing a note back to Erik, when there was an odd clicking noise at the door. I looked over my shoulder, wondering if the train had rats.

_Click…click…clink…_

For a moment I couldn't place the sound, though it seemed familiar. Something to do with Erik, something to do with illegal activities in the dead of night.

Oh, I knew.

Someone was trying to break in.

I sat up, waved my paper in the air to dry the ink, and reached for the knife on the seat of the armchair. The familiar weapon (it was the very same one I had had when I'd first met Erik) fit well in my hand. The handle was smooth and warm against my skin. I stood, wincing as my head twanged with pain.

I coughed very loudly and said, "I'm thirsty, Christophe. Can you get me a glass of water?"

The clicking at the lock stopped very abruptly.

I stomped across the floor, pretending to be an annoyed Christophe getting water for his prisoner, and clomped into the bathroom. I turned the faucet on, smacked a cup into the sink, and filled it all the way up.

Putting a hand over my mouth to muffle my voice, I said gruffly, "Here," and went to put the cup on the table.

The clicking noises started again.

I took a deep breath and stared at the door. Apparently my impersonation of Christophe had failed, which meant that whoever was at the door knew him personally, which meant it was one of the contacts.

I thought bitterly, _I'll bet my teeth it's James._

"Who's there?" I demanded, advancing towards the door. "I will shoot you!"

There was the sound of quiet, sarcastic laughter. The clicking continued.

"I doubt Christophe left you a gun," said James' voice. "And I'll be in there sooner or later, so you may as well open the door."

I rolled my eyes at the ceiling. I was trying to think of something suitably terrifying to scare him away, but nothing came to mind.

I glanced around the room, half-wondering why I wasn't panicking yet (then realized it was because I had been in these situations so _often_), trying to think of something else I could do to prepare myself for battle. Perhaps I would find a second weapon, in case James (if he ever did managed to open the door) stole my knife.

The lamp, perhaps. Or – the poker.

I went and picked it up, then held it in the flames, watching the metal turn red-hot. If James thought I'd surrender without a fight, he was thinking very incorrectly indeed.

The clicking at the door continued as James kept trying to pick the lock. I put the poker down (leaving the tip in the flames), laid the knife on my bed, and dragged the armchair over to the door. I had finally remembered that the contact had a gun. There was not going to be a hand-to-hand fight, because if I attempted one, I would lose.

It took a considerable amount of strength, sweat, and lost breath, but in the end I managed to wedge the back of the chair under the doorknob, effectively blocking anyone from entering.

The clicking stopped. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you out, you_ imbécile_," I said, forgetting in my fury (why did people _always _insist on bothering me?) that I hated cursing. "Now get out of here, or I promise you, you'll regret this for the rest of your life."

The poker hissed merrily in the fireplace; my knife sparkled on the blanket. I turned to look at the open window: perhaps I could climb out of the train and onto the roof, if it came to that.

But then I heard footsteps, and turned back around, assuming James had given up and was departing.

But instead there was a second voice, and a third, and I realized several people were walking past, talking.

"I'd rather have eaten in our room," said a female voice. "Why do you always decide to pick fights with the waiters?"

"I don't pick fights," said a male voice that oozed with superiority. "He was the one who spilled the milk all over my cravat. I only asked him-"

"Yelled at him in front of the entire car," said the woman's voice. "No wonder he glared at you so. And then you decided to go and complain to the manager-"

"I was perfectly within my rights to do so!"

"No, you were acting like an idiot! You always embarrass me in front of everyone! We can't go _anywhere_ anymore because of you!"

She sounded as if she was on the verge of tears, and both of their voices had risen to shouts. James was either frozen next to the door or walking quickly away, because I couldn't hear anything from him. The woman continued to shout at her husband, her voice trembling. It sounded like they had stopped right next to my door.

_My saviors_, I thought, discarding plans of pokers and climbing out windows and wrestling with armchairs. _I adore you._

"Excuse me."

It was Erik's voice, and I let out a little sigh of relief. Thank goodness. Perhaps I would be able to go back to my writing now. I pulled the armchair away from the door and began the laborious process of dragging it back in front of the fireplace.

He knocked, and I wiped a hand across my forehead, took a deep breath, and went to open the door. I was carrying my knife, just in case James knew how to imitate voices and that it was actually him outside, and not Erik.

It _was_ Erik, though, and he was holding a full tray and glancing over his shoulder at the arguing couple, a bewildered expression on his face. I could tell what he was thinking: _Who are these people? Why are they arguing with each other? Do married couples always argue like that?_

"James tried to break in," I said, after he'd gotten inside and shut the door.

"_What?"_

"Take deep breaths, dear," I said, as he turned to glare at the door. I snatched up my note from the seat of the armchair and slipped it into my pocket. "I got out my knife, see? And I heated the poker, and I dragged the armchair under the doorknob."

Erik stood in the middle of the room, clearly alternating between going to find James and strangling him, and staying here to keep an eye on me. He chose the latter: he sat down in the armchair and lifted a piece of bacon from his plate. Methodically, he crushed it between his fingers.

I didn't think he knew what he was doing: his eyes were fixed on the door. Little pieces of meat rained down on his plate.

"He's a monster," I went on, picking up my plate of eggs and toast from the tray on his lap, "but now you're back, and you can threaten him with death if he shows up again. Eat something, dear, I don't want you to starve."

Erik continued to smash his bacon, glowering blindly into space. "I will kill him."

I shook my head, dug my fork into my eggs, and ate. I'd have to wait until he took a few more deep breaths.

After I deemed him sufficiently back to normal, I said, "Well, I wouldn't mind if you did – well, maybe I would – but you can't, dear. I'm sorry. How are you feeling, by the way? How's your shoulder? Did you change the bandages?"

Erik (who had poured himself a cup of tea and was sipping from it) glanced down at his shoulder, surprised, as if he'd forgotten it was there. "All right, I think. Yes, I changed them last night. And the headaches have gone away. But how are you feeling?"

"Good," I said. "I've decided we need to get off the train as soon as possible."

Erik nodded. "That would be beneficial, yes."

"But I don't have a map," I said. "And I don't know our nearest stop. And I'm not entirely certain we should leave."

My fiancé looked up, startled. "Why not?"

I picked up my own cup of tea and sat down on the arm of his chair. "I'm worried about the copyist, Erik. If the Inspector really is back, and he really does have him… The poor man has no idea what he's fallen into. We can't let him-"

"No," Erik said, realizing what I was saying. "No. We can't do that, Irene. We need to get away from here as soon as we can."

"Erik…" I looked away, shaking my head. "I just don't know. I keep thinking of Nicolas."

Nicolas, who'd saved our lives, though he was a common murderer and a man with no reason to. Nicolas, who had given up everything, even his life, to free us, though we were his enemies, though I'd killed his brother.

Erik's teacup clattered onto his plate as he stood. He strode to the window, shoving his hands into his pockets, his back to me.

"Irene… you don't need to do this. _We_ don't need to do this. We could go somewhere else – do something else-"

"We can't go home, Erik. The Parisian police will lock us up. And where else would you go?"

"We could simply vanish," he said, his tone wistful. "Somewhere in Europe… we could stay on this train and let it take us far away."

I had the feeling I knew what he was imagining. I looked past him, out the window, at the meadows we were rushing past.

_A long countryside, stretched out against the gold horizon; a tiny house standing brown beneath the stars, its red door open. _

_A thatched roof. Horses in the stable, a weathervane spinning in the blue sky. Wheat rising in long rows across the ground. _

_Erik, bare-faced and smiling, leaning in the doorway, his violin tucked under his chin, strains of music rippling in the earthy breeze. _

_A pile of books on the kitchen table. An open window. A stack of writing, my pen lying on a chair._

My throat was tight. I stood, setting my plate down on the chair.

"We can't."

Erik turned. "You're thinking of Antoinette," he said, green eyes pleading, "but she wouldn't mind. We'd get news to her somehow. And Francis – he'd understand…. So would Nadir. They only want us to be happy, Irene. They would let us go."

I closed my eyes, trying to figure out why it felt wrong. It would be so easy, so simple… A few words: they were all I had to say.

"I don't know."

He came to me, his face open and hopeful. "Irene, it's one of the best chances we've got. We can't go back to Paris. We've shirked the assignment – if we return, they'll send me to trial."

"The Opera House?" I said, thinking of his home; of my room, the roof, the auditorium. The Opera had sunk into me: I could feel its music throbbing under my skin; feel the cool wind of the roof blowing through my hair. My feet had trod its corridors, climbed its stairs. I'd cried there, laughed there, nearly died there. There I'd met my friends; there I'd met Erik; there I'd let go of revenge and chosen love instead.

"It's your home, Erik. It's _my_ home. Would you be able to leave it?"

Erik nodded. "Yes."

I felt something catch in my throat. This was something wholly unexpected. I had never thought to hear him say that – never thought he would volunteer to leave the Opera, his only home, to forge a new path, to create a new place with me. Without thinking, I reached up and touched the scar running under his lip.

"What of your mask?"

Erik looked down at me.

He raised his hand and placed it over mine, long fingers holding mine in place.

"I'll throw it away when we leave," he said, his breath soft against my hand. "And we can start anew."


	12. Late Morning

"We can't stay on the train," I said, a few minutes later. "I don't think we can just flee into the night. Someone will find us eventually."

"Why not?" Erik said. His voice was soft, compelling. "We could lose James and Henri in the crowd and simply get back on the train. It would be easy."

"They aren't too bright," I agreed, "but James did say they were going to stay with us. I don't think we can distract them long enough to vanish."

"A distraction wouldn't be too difficult."

I looked at him. His lips curved at the ends in a thoughtful smile; I could almost see the gears spinning behind his brightened eyes.

"Erik," I said, warningly. "What _kind_ of distraction?"

"Oh, I haven't decided yet," he said, and turned away to the window. "Something loud, I think. Something loud and chaotic. Perhaps we could… no, that would be too dangerous. But maybe we could… no… But yes, _that_ might work."

He swiveled back around. "What do you say to stealing a few things?"

"How many is a few?" I asked, trying not to imagine what he had in mind. It would be something awful, I was sure. "And I still haven't said yes, Erik. I really don't think we should leave that poor copyist to rot in the Inspector's newest hellhole. Please tell me you understand I how feel; you're being entirely too cavalier about the whole thing."

Erik frowned. "I am not. Irene, we won't get another chance like this one. If we stay in Venice, we'll be trapped with James and Henri for quite some time. And Christophe will catch up to us, creating all sorts of problems. I'm sure he's gotten out of the hotel by now, or he's more inept than I thought."

"But?" I said, as he paused.

"But if we stay on the train, we can stay ahead of all of them. And then we can figure out what to do next."

I shook my head, growing distressed. Why wasn't he agreeing with me? "I know our chances of escaping in Venice are slim, but what about the copyist? We can't just abandon him. I say we stay in Venice, but lose Christophe's contacts. We can rent an apartment, change our disguises, and begin our own investigation. We could go to art shows-"

Erik was shaking his head, his eyes dark with disagreement. I drew a deep breath, trying not to lose my temper. Why wasn't he listening to me? I made _perfect_ sense. How could we run off somewhere and leave a kidnapped man behind? What kind of people _were _we?

"Why won't you listen to me?" I said, my voice rising involuntarily. "Why doesn't this make sense to you? We have to help him if we can, and we _can_."

"You're worth more to me than a copyist," my fiancé said. "I'd rather have you safe than him. I can't agree with you on this, Irene."

I stared back at him, defiant. "Then what are we going to do?"

"I don't know," Erik said. He took a deep breath. "I suppose we'll have to find a compromise."

"We both think we should lose Christophe's men," I said.

"And we both want to stay moderately safe," Erik said.

"But you don't want to help the copyist."

"And _you_ won't leave with me."

"This is _stupid_," I said, striding over to the fireplace and flinging my hands down on the stone mantel. "I'm not going to change my mind, and clearly, neither are you."

Erik growled, "I don't want to see you hurt. Venice is the last place I want us to be."

"It's not always what _you_ want that matters," I said into the stone. "Sometimes what I want matters too."

He made an inarticulate, choked noise of disbelief. I heard him move away from me, then a thump as he sat down on the bed. There was the click of a latch, the rustle of clothing: he was going through Christophe's suitcase, I assumed.

I breathed slowly, letting the smoke from the dying fire waft up into my face until the burning smell overwhelmed me. Clenching my hands together, I backed away and sat down in the armchair.

"What are you doing?" I said, speaking to the rug. There were wildflowers dotted along the edge, blooming or furled, some half-drooping, some dead. A skull lay trapped, smothered and eyeless, in a coil of withering leaves: I shuddered. Who'd made this? And who had put it here?

"Searching for clues," he said. A pause. "Maybe Christophe has papers in here after all. I don't think I checked this correctly the first time."

I didn't want to look at him because I was angry, but my curiosity got the better of me. I twisted around in the armchair, tucking my knees under me so I could see over the back.

Christophe's suitcase lay open on the bed, clothes strewn around it, pouring out of it, dropping onto the floor. Erik was bent over the suitcase, pulling at something inside of it, his arms tensed, his jaw tight. A snap – and he yanked a folder of papers from the inside, holding it up in triumph, his face glowing.

I sprang out of the armchair and snatched the folder from him. "Erik, look! It's about the copyist!"

The first page read:

_Pietro Crocetti, twenty-one years old, was last seen in Piazza San Marco on March 6th, a little after eight pm, by his art dealer, Matteo Favero. His young sister Stella Crocetti was with him; both are missing. His apartment was ransacked, but the amount or quality of items taken (if any were taken) is unknown._

_The copyist specialized in copies of Raphael paintings. According to Matteo Favero, he had suddenly acquired a new customer a few weeks ago, an older, overweight man with an interest in buying one of his best. The interested party wanted a copy of **Woman with a Veil**, which Pietro sold to him five days before he went missing._

_Pietro's sister, Stella, is twelve and orphaned. Their parents passed away from typhoid ten years after she was born. Pietro has been supporting her ever since._

_Both victims are unacquainted with criminals or criminal activity._

I handed the first page to Erik and went on to the second.

_Instructions: retrieve the Crocettis and detain the Inspector. _

_Supplies: two contacts waiting outside the D'hôtel Papillion. Further instructions will be given upon meeting the contacts._

_Destination: Piazza San Marco, Venice, Italy. Bring bait._

I turned it over, but there was nothing else. The folder was empty. Erik lifted it out of my hands and slid the papers back inside, saying nothing.

"Well?" I said, the new information settling into my brain like lights turning on in a dark room. "We know who we're looking for, we know when he vanished, and we know why. I think we should do something with this information, shouldn't we?"

Erik slipped the folder back into the bottom of the suitcase and snapped the hidden compartment shut. I could see the tension in the lines of his face, his clamped lips.

"Erik. He has a twelve-year-old sister. She's been taken too. We have to do something."

He didn't make a sound, but he turned to me, and his eyes were fierce.

"I know," he said. He let out a sigh. "I know. You're right. We have to save them."

* * *

I was still kissing him when the train crashed.

Erik felt the shudder first, and then I felt it too: a horrible ringing vibration that stammered up through my legs and spine into my skull. I clutched one hand to my face, gritting my teeth in the terrible earthquake of pain, and felt Erik wrap his arms around my shoulders before the world went sideways and upside-down.

The next few seconds were akin to being inside a thunderstorm. The boxcar flipped over, spinning Erik and I inside of it like toothpicks in a cardboard box. The bed flew with us – the mattress crushed us against the ceiling, trapping the two of us underneath.

_A flash of darkness… my head ached… Where were we? What was happening? A flash of pain…_

My cheek pressed against the grainy ceiling, melding into the wood. My eyes burned with dust. I coughed, swallowed a mouthful of dry, dead air, and coughed again.

"Erik," I whispered, spitting out bits of dirt. His arms were tight, very tight around my shoulders. His chin rested on the top of my head.

He hadn't heard me; he didn't answer. I wondered if he was conscious. I tried to move, but my arms and legs screamed in agony, trapped as they were between the mattress and the ceiling and Erik, and I stopped. My ribs were smashed together; my lungs hardly worked. I lay between the ceiling and Erik like a squashed bug, half-dead and barely aware of my surroundings.

For a long moment I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or awake. Everything was surreal. The dust flickered past me in slow motion through the interplay of light and shadow.

_The Inspector, leering down at me. His pudgy fingers clasped together, his beady eyes were as black as pitch. He smiled: his lips moved. I didn't hear what he said, but I understood the smile. _

_He was happy. He tapped his hands together, looked behind him and nodded. A group of people moved in the darkness behind him, weapons glinting in their hands. A flash of fair hair, a long knife._

_My heartbeat picked up, strangling me – I tried to step away, but my feet were frozen to the ground._

_The Inspector stepped towards me, gesturing with his hand for the others to join us._

_I felt frantically for my knife._

I blinked again, shaking the strange images away, scraping my cheek against the wood as I moved. Little lights winked in and out around me, white orbs so small they would have fit ten times across my fingernail. Blinking them away, I gasped for air, and felt the boxcar shift.

Then it _moved_: we tumbled out from under the bed, rolling across the floor like china dolls. I wrapped myself up in a terrified ball and closed my eyes to the shaking, stumbling motions.

It seemed like an hour before I found the strength to stand.

* * *

The window was still open, but it was above us now. Its wall had become our new ceiling. A shaft of dirty sunlight fell through its broken panes, blazing on the back of my head from where I knelt above Erik. His eyes were closed, and a bruise blackened the edge of his cheekbone. The ground around us was scattered with broken bits of pottery, ashes from the fireplace, dirt and dust and mayhem. The bed lay up against the wall, the blankets and sheets hanging off like curtains. Christophe's suitcase lay open and empty in the corner, clothes scattered around it like so many limp ghosts.

I dipped the rag of torn petticoat into the pitcher of water and dabbed Erik's forehead with it. It had been a minute or so since the boxcar had decided to settle on its side against two large pine trees. Thanks to them, we hadn't rolled any farther down the hillside.

"You're dripping water on me," said an amused voice. I looked down at Erik – I'd been staring up at the window, watching the shadows of the tree branches flicker in the wind, listening for sounds of survivors – and smiled.

"You're awake," I said. My voice trembled with relief. "Thank goodness."

He sat up carefully, putting an arm around me. I thought he was steadying himself, but instead he pulled me close and pressed a kiss into my forehead. I blinked, coughed a bit of dust from my throat, and dropped my head against his chest. Tears pricked at the corners of my eyes.

"Dear Irene," he murmured.

I closed my eyes, breathing in his scent: sweat, chocolate, ink, wood shavings. One hand lay on his shoulder, fingertips pressing softly into the linen shirt.

"You're all right? You're not hurt?"

As he said this, I heard someone call out, their voice quite near: "Help me! Please, someone, help me!"

My skin went cold. I pulled away from Erik. We looked at each other with wide eyes.

The voice was a child's.

* * *

Erik got to his feet, cupped his hands together, and nodded at me.

"I'll hoist you through the window," he said.

"But you-" I started.

"I'll stand on the bed," he said. "I'm taller than you. Come on, step up. I've got you."

I put both hands on his shoulders and stepped into his hands with one foot. Erik pushed upward: I rose towards the open, broken window.

"I'm going to step onto your shoulder," I warned him.

"Go ahead," Erik said. "The left shoulder, if you don't mind. And watch out for the glass when you go through the window."

I climbed onto his left shoulder, ripped a large section of cloth from my skirt (Erik grunted when I did this – he was getting tired, it seemed), wrapped my hands in the cloth and pulled myself through the window. My knees hit hot wood as I rolled onto the top of the boxcar: I winced and crawled away from the window to look down.

The trees were very close to us: a handful of pine needles poked at my cheek. I swiped them out of my way and leaned further over the side of the boxcar. The ground appeared to be very far away: the pine trees had stopped the boxcar, but they had also created an impenetrable wall. I pulled my knife from my pocket and began to hack away at the nearest branch, attempting to create a space to jump through.

"Are you coming?" I called. Whoever had called out was somewhere out here, needing help, needing people to find him. But I couldn't see anything.

"Almost," Erik groaned from behind me. There was a crack, a thump, and then the boxcar wall shook. "Yes, I'm here. What are you doing?"

"We can't get down through here," I said, dropping another hacked-off branch on the boxcar. "Do you think-"

"Shh…"

I stopped talking. Erik crouched down beside me silently, head cocked to one side, eyes narrowed.

"Do you hear that?" he whispered.

I shook my head. I couldn't hear anything but the wind rustling through the pine needles. It was very warm out here; the sun was beating down on me like a hot drum.

_Where were the other boxcars?_

I swiveled around, looking up the hillside, and was horrified to see that there was nothing there. No boxcars, no people, nothing. Only a line of broken track straggling down through the grass. And a boy lying beside it, one arm bent at an awkward, awful angle, unmoving…

"_Erik_," I said.

He turned and looked, broken from his reverie.

* * *

I scrambled over the edge of the boxcar and tumbled onto the grass. My feet seemed to be moving of their own accord: I did not know what I was doing, only that I had to get to him. I fell to my knees besides the boy and pressed my fingers to his neck.

He had a pulse. He was going to be all right.

His hair was light brown and scattered over a high, sallow forehead. His lips were parted; spots of red dotted his cheekbones. At my touch, he groaned, and his eyes flew open.

He reached for his arm, but I managed to his wrist before he could touch the broken arm.

"Don't," I said. "It's hurt. Lie still."

Brown eyes looked into mine without understanding; then they cleared, and he closed them and pressed his arm down by his side. His lips trembled.

"Who are you?"

"Irene," I said, forcing myself not to look at his broken arm. I had never been good with broken bones – blood I could handle, but not limbs bent at sickening, wrong angles. "What's your name?"

"Shawn," said the boy. He lay quite still, but his lips were white. "What happened?"

"I'm not quite sure," I said. "Do you – do you have anyone on the train?"

The boy shook his head a tiny fraction, then lay still again. I did not understand. How could he be on the train alone? Didn't he have parents? Did he mean there was someone he knew on the train, but that they were dead? Where was Erik? I needed him; he understood what people were saying even when they didn't say it.

Then a crashing, tearing noise from behind me; a chorus of snapping and breaking sounds. The boy shifted, moving his hurt arm, and bit his lip. I patted his shoulder and looked behind me.

A small group of people emerged from the newly created door in the side of the boxcar, all disheveled, all pale and confused-looking, their eyes wild. I counted four: an older man, bent and wizened; a couple, their arms around each other; a man with dark hair and darker eyes. Erik came last, carrying a poker in one hand and my knife in the other. He slipped the knife away into his boot and laid the poker down near the splintered wood next to the boxcar.

The couple trailed past me, staring blankly at the grass, and sat down in the shade from the pine trees. The elderly man looked up at me and the boy, frowned, and stepped through the grass towards us. Erik and the other man followed.

"I'm a doctor," the elderly man said when he reached us. His voice was tremulous with age, but his eyes were bright and intelligent as they looked down at me and the boy. "I can help him."

He bent down and spoke to the boy. "You have a broken wrist, young man."

"I know," the boy said, without opening his eyes. "What – what are you going to do?"

He was striving to appear calm and without pain, but his whitening face betrayed him.

"I'm going to set it," the doctor said. "Young woman, would you give me a piece of cloth?"

I handed him the strip of cloth I'd torn from my petticoat. He took it in both hands, pulled it taut, and nodded.

"And a long, straight piece of wood," he said, turning to Erik, who'd stopped behind him. "I think that one lying over there would do."

Erik hurried away to get it, and the other man bent over the boy, his dark eyes unreadable. "Do you want help?" he asked the older man.

"No," the doctor said. "You two can go. Thank you, mademoiselle."

"Do you want me to stay?" I asked the boy.

He shook his head. I stood and went up the hillside, feeling oddly shaky. My head was aching again. Why had the train crashed? And where was the rest of it? Was our boxcar the only one left?

I came to the top of the hill.

The railroad stretched unbroken and empty on both sides. To its right was the forest; to the left was a sea of grassy hills. In the distance was nothing but green: great lines of pine trees, long rolling slopes of foliage. The tracks coalesced into a tiny black speck, vanishing into nothing. There were no cities, no towns, no villages.

The boy cried out as the doctor pulled his arm straight and tied it to the board. Erik climbed up to me, his eyes grim as they surveyed our surroundings. I looked down at the small group of people on the hillside, then back at the empty countryside.

We were alone.


	13. Another Afternoon

_Yes, it's a miracle! I've updated this story at last! _

_I finally found more to write about it, so I'm going to keep updating for a while. I really hope I can finish it this time._

_I hope you enjoy!_

* * *

We stood on the hillside, looking out at the empty horizon.

"The rest of the train," I said. "It's gone. Our boxcar must have come disconnected – something broke, or something – maybe the links snapped? How are we going to get out of here?"

"We can walk," Erik said. He looked past me, at the people beneath us. "It's possible that the train is stopped somewhere up ahead, past those trees; all we have to do is get to it."

I nodded, slowly. _Odd, though, that the train we were on crashed so mysteriously… Perhaps Christophe is closer than we thought._

"Erik, this can't be a coincidence," I said.

He nodded. "I know."

"We need to be very careful."

Lower down, the dark-eyed man looked up from besides the doctor and the boy. He was clearly watching the two of us. He brushed the back of his hand across his cheek, as if swatting away a fly, and made his way up the hillside, stepping through the tall grass.

"Are you planning to leave soon?" he asked. His voice was accented the same as Henri's – he was Italian, and his French was precise, scholarly – it was his second language. His dark eyes were canny. They flashed with interest as he looked from me to Erik.

Erik shrugged. "We haven't decided. Are you?"

The man turned both hands palms-up and shrugged, mimicking Erik's gesture but with more flair. "I haven't decided. The doctor wants to take the boy along the railroad tracks to find the rest of the train – the boy's parents were in a separate boxcar. Perhaps I will go with him, or perhaps I will go with you."

I mulled this over for a moment. "Er– I mean, Christophe-" I caught myself just in time. "So what do you think?" I went on. "Do you want to follow the railroad tracks? Or do you want to wait and see if help comes?"

"It's up to you," Erik said. He hadn't missed my slip – his eyes were wary. He smiled and said to the dark-eyed man, "I'm sorry. We haven't introduced ourselves. This is Marie, my fiancée, and I am Christophe."

The Italian bowed in a graceful manner, and took my hand in both of his to kiss it. "A pleasure, signora. I am honored to make your acquaintance. I am Niccolo Favero."

_Favero._ It was the name of the kidnapped copyist's art dealer. Was he related to Matteo Favero? I drew in a quick breath.

Next to me Erik laughed: a rich, mellifluous sound. The Phantom's laugh. My heart leapt unexpectedly. "A pleasure to meet you. You wouldn't happen to be related to Matteo Favero, would you? My fiancée and I have an interest in buying artwork from him – we've heard he's a fine dealer."

Niccolo started, staring at us. Then he smiled, and his face flushed with pleasure. (I relaxed: every nerve in my body had been drawn taut at Erik's unsubtle question.) "How wonderful that you know Matteo! He is my uncle, and my favorite one, too. Yes, his painters are quite good. I don't suppose you know one of his best, though, a boy named Pietro? Pietro Crocetti?"

I didn't know if it would be better to lie or to tell the truth. Erik seemed at a loss besides me; he said nothing for a heartbeat.

"Yes," I said, throwing myself into the conversation with a feeling of crazed desperation. "Yes, we've heard of him. I am hoping to buy one of his paintings, actually. Have you met him?"

Niccolo smiled, seemingly unaware of our attempts to dig for information. His eyes were sad; I wondered if he knew his uncle's painter was missing. "Yes, signora, I have. I assure you, he is one of the finest Raphael copyists in the whole of Europe. What painting did you have in mind?"

"_Woman with a Veil_," Erik said. His hand came to rest at the small of my back. "Marie's favorite."

"Ah," Niccolo said. He coughed, then glanced away. "I see."

"Is something wrong?" I inquired, hoping I sounded sympathetic and not over-inquisitive.

"Well, you understand," Niccolo said, shifting from foot to foot, "I'm sorry to say that Pietro has… vanished. Both he and his sister have mysteriously disappeared. Along with one of his paintings – that very one, to be precise. My uncle Matteo thinks they have been kidnapped. His sister's name is Stella. She is a small girl with a face like an angel, very beautiful, very innocent.

I was unsure of what to do, and could only stare. Yes, this was the right man. Erik shifted slightly besides me.

Niccolo sighed, probably thinking our stunned expressions equaled shared horror. "I was on my way to Venice to help my uncle in his search before the train crashed. Pietro and Stella have been missing for far too long already, and he thought, perhaps, that I could help."

This confirmed everything we'd been told by the police, and Niccolo was obviously hoping we would assist him. What better way to find out more about Pietro and Stella's kidnapping than by working with Niccolo and Matteo Favero himself?

I lowered my eyes to the grass around my feet. "I see. How horrible – and we were just going to see him."

Erik stood quite still. "That is awful," he managed, sounding as if he'd taken an unexpected blow. "I – I don't really know what to say."

Niccolo sighed again. "Yes. And I am sorry to have told you, but there was really no other way to say it-"

"No, no," I said, looking up. "I understand. Thank you. But your poor uncle – what terrible news."

"Yes," Niccolo said; his face grew even darker. "And he loves Pietro like a son. He never married, you see – Stella and Pietro are almost his adopted children."

_Oh, dear,_ I thought. It was bad enough that the two of them were missing, but did the poor art dealer have to suffer too? _We must get them back as soon as possible. Who knows what horrors they are going through? _

And the fact that Stella was also missing bothered me immensely. A young girl alone with the Inspector and his amoral thugs. And it was only too clear that her wellbeing would be something for the Inspector to threaten Pietro with if the copyist balked at whatever they wished him to do. What could they possibly have in mind? Why would they want an art copyist?

"How long have they been missing?" I said.

Niccolo shook his head. "Two weeks. Too long, yes? And the police have no leads. They told my uncle Matteo they would collaborate with the French police – something about how an old case in Paris corresponds with the kidnapping – but we have heard nothing from them. Although," he amended, "Uncle Matteo's last letter was a week ago, so things could have changed by now."

As he said this, I saw out of the corner of my eye that the couple sitting on the hillside had gotten up. The man stood motionless, hands in his pockets, and the woman wandered up the hillside, her skirts blowing in the gentle warm wind, her back to us. She seemed to be surveying the forest, but as she stepped backward, closer to us, I guessed that she was actually listening to our conversation.

This was confirmed when she turned around. "Are the three of you leaving by the railroad?"

"Well, we don't know yet," I said, looking intently at her. She was the same woman whose voice had been raised in angry argument outside of my room this morning, the same depressed-looking woman who had sat with her oblivious husband at a table near ours in the dining room. "What are you going to do?"

"My husband thinks it would be best if we followed the train to Lake Iseo – it lies a few kilometers west of here," she said brightly. Her face was pointed and pale and weary-looking: her red-rimmed eyes were the color of old pennies. There were splinters of wood caught in the lace of her bodice. Her hair lay limp and faded on the shoulders of her gown. "I am Mara, and this is Dante."

Her husband had trailed up the hillside after her. I raised my eyes to his face and felt my stomach drop.

He had cold, cold eyes, and the smile on his lips seemed as false as James' had been in the dining car. He offered me his hand; I shook it without thinking, transfixed by his dead stare. He had to be ill; there was no reason for his fish-eyed gaze. Perhaps he had caught the same virus that had afflicted me last night. It was a possibility. I was being silly. I managed to keep my smile, and nodded at him.

"Marie," I said. "My fiancé Christophe. And Niccolo Favero."

Erik stiffened beside me: I remembered belatedly that I was supposed to be subservient, broken. Well. I dropped my eyes back to the grass.

Everyone shook hands around me, murmuring hellos.

Mara stepped closer, smiling brightly. "So you three haven't decided yet? If you want to, you are welcome to come with Dante and I to Lake Iseo. It is close by; we can rent a carriage to take us to Venice in the morning."

She looked penetratingly at me, then turned her manic stare to Erik. He looked back, his eyes wide. He was clearly out of his depth. I opened my mouth to save him.

"Ahrumph."

I closed my mouth, relieved. The doctor had mounted the hill, and now stood by Dante, his arms crossed. The injured boy slouched besides him, his eyes half-lidded in exhaustion and pain. "Excuse me. This boy and I are leaving now, if any of you want to come. We are going to follow the train."

Niccolo spoke up, startling me, for I'd forgotten him. He moved forward, running a hand awkwardly through his hair. "Ah, Doctor, would you mind if I came with you? I would like to accompany you."

I knew what he was thinking. The doctor was elderly, and the boy standing shaking besides him, his hurt arm cradled against his body, was quite spent. The two of them would find their journey to the train difficult, even if it had stopped only a few miles away.

As if in answer, there came the sound of a distant whistle. The doctor eyed Niccolo. "If you want to come, start walking. We're leaving now."

"Would you like to come with us?" Niccolo asked Erik and I.

Erik looked from Niccolo to me, clearly at an impasse. We couldn't just let our best lead vanish – we had to go with him. Mara was going to have to go to Lake Iseo alone. I nodded.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mara's eyes widen in shock. Instantly I felt cruel and heartless, but we needed to go.

"We'll accompany you," I told Niccolo. "Let me grab my things from the boxcar, and then we'll be off. I'll be back in a few seconds, Doctor." I glanced at Erik. "Do you need anything?"

"Maybe," he said, clearly remembering we had valuables in the boxcar. "I'll come with you to look."

I went down the hillside, the wind curling around me and tugging at the edges of my hair. For a scant moment I relished the cool air across my face, and then suddenly, sickeningly, my vision blurred. The thin spikes of grass faded into obscurity; the sky swam like a monstrous patch of blue; glistening, horrid, running in waves.

I put a hand over my eyes and stopped, trying to swallow down the nausea.

"Marie?"

He – Erik – was using my fake name, but my brain refused to comprehend this, and I didn't – couldn't – answer. I held my breath, afraid to open my eyes, knowing I'd only see a miasma of broken colors.

_Not now… please, not now. _

"Is she alright? Is she ill?"

It was the doctor's rough voice. I heard his stumpy footsteps approaching, and a murmur of voices from the top of the hill.

"Are you ill, Mademoiselle?"

He'd stopped before me. I could smell strong tobacco on his clothing.

"Only a headache," I managed, forcing the words out, and opened my eyes.

His old wrinkled face floated before mine, a massive expanse of cheese-pale skin, pocked here and there with tiny holes. Smallpox scars. His nose jutted out like a jagged iceberg in the middle of a gritty white sea. It was too much, too close. I closed my eyes again and prayed that he would back away.

"I only need to rest."

"Marie, let me help you." Erik's voice – apparently he'd decided this was enough. I felt him grasp my elbows, supporting me, holding me upright. I leaned gratefully against his solidity. "Thank you, Doctor, but it's only indigestion. She's not supposed to eat meat, but sometimes one must, especially on a train."

The doctor appeared satisfied with this explanation: he'd probably met frail, complaining women before (or thought he had). After a caution against eating things that disagreed with one's stomach, he stalked away through the rustling grass, saying something about leaving as soon as we could.

"Yes," Erik called after him. "But give us a few moments, please."

I drew a long breath, swallowed, and took a step away from Erik, testing my balance. My foot slipped – Erik caught hold of my elbow again, and we proceeded in tandem down the slope. My forehead was drenched in sweat, and my hair stuck to my cheeks and neck. I couldn't stop shaking; the grass was as slippery as broken shale under my feet. For a moment I considered sitting down and not moving. It would be so much easier. But I couldn't bear staying here, pinned to the ground under all of their curious eyes.

* * *

He drew me into the broken opening in the side of the boxcar, and propped me up against one of the walls. I felt plaster carvings under my damp hands, pressing into the back of my head and shoulder blades: swirls, divots, arches.

"Can you open your eyes?"

I didn't think I'd see anything, but I did so. I stared blankly in the direction of his voice: all I could see was a smudged outline of his silhouette, perhaps a terribly blurred image of his cheekbone and nose. It was dark in here; it smelled faintly of burning wood. Perhaps this wasn't the best place to hold a conversation, but it was the only way we could speak without being overheard.

"What do you suppose is wrong with me?" I whispered. "It's the second time this has happened in two days."

"I think you're having a reaction to the sedative Christophe used on us," Erik said. I felt him take hold of my chin with gentle fingers, tilting my head back to examine my pupils. "You need rest, food, and water. We should stay here for a night, and then go on to Venice. I don't think you should be walking anywhere. Nowhere as far as the train, anyways."

"I thought you didn't want to stay," I said. The trembling in my hands and legs was receding; the cool wall of the boxcar felt wonderful against my back.

Erik put the back of his hand against my forehead. His skin was dry, cool. I sighed, closed my eyes again.

"I didn't," he said, responding to my question, and pulled his hand away. "But it's necessary now." He paused. "I don't think you have a fever."

We stood silently for a moment; I tried to calm my harsh breathing. There were soft voices outside: a high-pitched younger one, and a gruff reply – it sounded like the boy was talking to Dante. I couldn't imagine why. The man hardly seemed approachable.

"What do you think of the mystery couple?" Erik said, his voice quiet. "Do you think we should go with them to the lake? Mara said it was only a few minutes away."

I closed my eyes to the darkness, trying to think. Mara's overbright, cheery eyes swam up into my thoughts, followed swiftly by Dante's dead stare. "I don't know. They seem – odd. Troubled."

Erik chuckled, then sobered. "Yes. Mara appears very interested in company."

"Yes, she does. I think it's her husband. She's unhappy with him. Or he with her; I can't tell. Perhaps we should stay on with them. I can't imagine trekking across the countryside in this heat."

"We'd have an easier go of it under the trees," Erik agreed. He moved away from me, began rummaging around in the boxcar. Something rattled, shifted; I heard his shoes crunch through glass. "Do you want some water? I found half a cup."

"No, I'm feeling better," I said and realized that my head had stopped pounding. "You're still healing. You can have it."

There was a faint laugh from the corner of the boxcar; Erik's feet crunched back to me. "Truly, sometimes I wonder why you say things like that. Have some water; you're ill." He unfolded the fingers of my right hand and pressed the smooth glass into it. "Go on. I feel quite well."

I opened my eyes, expecting to see only a nauseous blur, but now Erik stood clearly before me. His hair was still the wrong color, and his face was still entirely too smooth, but the confusion was only due to makeup this time. "Yes, my vision's returned to normal. Thank goodness. If Christophe ever shows up again, I'll wring his stringy neck."

My fiancée laughed louder this time. I lifted the cup and drank, savoring the water. It was a bit warm, but that was to be expected. "I'm afraid I can't quite imagine that. And I was hoping I'd get the first strangling in – he did _shoot_ me, after all."

"That's true." I set the empty glass down on an overturned cushion. "But illnesses are worth more than bullets, I'm afraid. You'll have to concede."

"I refuse to forfeit my vengeance," Erik said, but the playfulness was fading from his tone. He turned and looked out, tilting his head. It looked as though he was listening intently to the conversation, something I could hardly hear. For a moment I watched him, wondering how much had changed since I'd first met him. For this was the Phantom's stance: watchful, careful, knowing.

"Let me go tell them we're staying on with Mara and Dante," he said, his voice soft. "I'll be right back. Do sit, Irene."

He slid around the edge of the jagged opening and disappeared.

I looked down at the shaded mess of belongings and furniture around my feet: cushions, broken glassware, the remains of our fireplace (still smoking gently), and Christophe's suitcase, lying open and empty on the wooden underside of the overturned bed. I sat down on the bed, cautious, but it didn't move, only creaked.

Carefully, I pulled Christophe's half-visible money bag from where it had fallen beside the bed, shaking glass and splinters from its soft leather. I placed half of the roll of money in one of my hidden pockets; the rest I put back into the suitcase, along with the battered clippings from the file – I'd found them under the bed, smashed into the ceiling.

I must have dozed off for a minute because when I opened my eyes again, Erik had returned.

He was standing beside me, closing Christophe's suitcase; he looked down at me and smiled in Christophe's manner – all teeth and no sympathy. I staggered to my feet, caught myself, and looked out of the boxcar. Mara and Dante waited outside in the afternoon light, the latter staring off at the forest, the former grinning plaintively at me, her hands clenched together.

"Coming, Marie?" Erik said.

I took a deep breath. "Yes."

We went out of the boxcar, leaving behind both the wreckage of our transportation, and our newest lead.

* * *

Dante led the way, as I'd expected he would, and said nothing to any of us. He only remarked before setting off that he hoped I wouldn't faint on the way. (Predictably, I nearly had to step on Erik's foot before he remembered he wasn't supposed to be defending me, but instead performing the part of an undercover detective saddled with a difficult charge.) All the same, he stayed rather close to my side, ready to help me in case the illness came back.

Mara tripped along to my right, her voice lilting and yet oddly tightened. I chalked it up to her dour husband, at whom she kept shooting nervous glances. She was telling us about the lake.

"We came here for our honeymoon," she said to me, holding her velvety (and expensive) skirts up with one white-knuckled hand and pushing aside low branches with the other. "It was very lovely; it was in the summer, like now, and so everything was just as green as could be. And the trees – oh, they simply seem to _soar_ up above us, don't they? Dante and I had such a grand time."

I couldn't imagine that, but gave her a nod and a slightly forced smile. My stomach was roiling again; I tugged at the neck of my gown. "So you've been recently married?"

Mara turned a shimmering face to mine. "Why, yes." She held up her left hand to show me her ring, almost giggling with happiness.

It was a cheap-looking gold circle, with a tiny flat diamond stuck to the rim. I forced yet another smile, but this time my hesitation was due to pained sympathy. What had her husband been thinking, buying her such a monstrosity?

"How lovely," I said, the lie nearly catching in my throat. "Congratulations."

"Yes, it's been almost a year now," she went on, satisfied with my feeble response. "It will be our anniversary in August."

"I'm so happy for you," I said, and perhaps my tone was wavering now, because Erik looked sharply down at me. I gave him the tiniest of shrugs.

He frowned, but looked away, and Mara continued to talk into my ear.

I ignored her. I was concentrating on clambering over a log without tearing my skirts still further - and trying to breathe through my mouth. There was something extremely smelly nearby, something dead. Ahead of us Dante was striding smartly through the bushes as though he was determined to win a prize for walking the fastest. He had not once looked back at us.

Mara's high voice drifted back into my consciousness. "– yes, and the water is so very cold, even in the summer, but we won't be swimming, of course. Once we reach the lake we can go into town and take a hotel room – or if the lake house isn't being rented, perhaps we can go there instead; there are two sections, you see, one for guests and one for the renters. And in the morning we can go on to Venice, after we rest for a while, since I know you're not feeling well –"

"A good plan," I said, only half-listening. We'd reached yet another log; Erik gave me a hand up; and I scowled vaguely at Dante's back as I slipped over the edge of the rotting wood and into an ankle-deep mass of wet leaves. He seemed to be taking us to the lake by the worst way possible.

He was deep into the next clearing, weeds nearly to his knees, when he stopped. Erik and I had hardly noticed this; we both heaved sighs as we came to the third log: this one was almost three feet tall, and twice as wide, with wet moss sunken into every dripping crevice.

I went first, using one of its branches for balance, then Erik, and he tumbled ungracefully into the weeds after me. Both of us were breathing heavily: I shot him a quick glance, wondering about his injury. His face was calm, too calm. I needed to take a look at his shoulder as soon as we got to the lake house; I hadn't dressed it for some time. Behind us Mara was still on the log: but then I heard the rustle as she dropped into the weeds.

She'd finally stopped talking.

Dante threw a sardonic glance over his shoulder at the three of us, still facing the opposite trees. I wondered what he was doing – could he see the lake house from there?

"We're here," he said. His shoulders were oddly hunched, as if he expected a blow.

Then he turned, swift and startling, and I saw the bright black revolver in his hand. His lips parted.

"_Don't_ _move_."

But it was a woman's voice that spoke, not his – I looked wildly over my shoulder.

Mara held a revolver, too, both of her hands wrapped expertly around it, one thin finger on the trigger. Her face was clear and unguarded; and now I saw, for the first time, fierce intelligence shining out of her eyes. She was not a cowering wife, it seemed.

"So, Monsieur," she said, and she was addressing Erik, "who are you, and whatever have you done with our Christophe?"


	14. Coming Evening

"Don't be a fool," Erik said. His voice was completely Christophe's: icy and full of death. He'd not moved; he still stood to my right. But I was closer to Mara – I could try and rush her – if I was lucky, I might wrest the revolver from her in time. "Put the revolver down, Mara."

Mara advanced, the revolver steady in her hands. "Close, but not good enough. Where is your identification?"

Erik drew his lips back in a sneer. I could hear it in his voice. "You know I don't carry such things with me."

"Liar," she hissed. "Dante, search him. See if he's telling the truth. He'll have _something_."

I heard Dante move towards us, his shoes surprisingly loud on the leaves, swish, swish, swish. Two footsteps, three. I turned my head, very aware of the revolver Mara still held. Dante had reached Erik, and was reaching out to pat at his back, one hand extended.

Erik didn't even let Dante touch him. He whirled, and the other man stepped back just in time, his face contorting in shock.

I gaped. No – the revolver – what was he _doing? - _and closed my eyes, unable to look.

"No!" Mara screamed. "Dante – you _idiota_!"

I opened my eyes, hardly daring to breathe.

Erik had caught Dante in a chokehold, his arms locked around the other man's neck, forcing him to his knees. I could see the strain around his eyes and mouth, the seething tension in his shoulders. He wouldn't be able to hold him much longer, not with his injury.

Dante threw his head back, the muscles in his neck convulsing. Mara raised the revolver and aimed at Erik's forehead.

I had to do something. I raced straight for her, shouting incoherently, "Help me! He kidnapped me! He's dangerous!"

Mara froze, confused by my sudden madness, the revolver dropping to point at the ground. I flung myself into her. My feet found her slim ankles, twisted around them until she toppled; one of my hands caught her shoulder and pressed it into the soft leaves. My right hand grasped the barrel of her revolver, pulling at it, tugging in desperation. The metal was cold and immovable. Her hand was as strong as coiled wire.

She squirmed, trying to get up, and dug her fingernails into my face. I gritted my teeth as I felt the skin under my cheekbone part. For a moment the world swam in useless struggle, spinning only around the two of us; my very skull ached. Then I shifted: the top of my head met her chin with a _crack_. She let go.

With a grunt, I pulled myself upright, everything swaying around me. The trees teetered; the ground lurched. I closed my eyes, opened them, pulled a few deep breaths against the ache in my side. I could feel blood sliding into my hair. Mine or Mara's, I couldn't tell.

The revolver was warm in my hand.

Oh, my head hurt.

I sat down abruptly on the damp leaves, my legs folding beneath me like broken twigs.

* * *

For a few seconds the forest remained silent, as silent as it had been when I'd untangled myself from Mara.

Then something slammed into the side of my head: thick and heavy - a branch? - and sound erupted around me. Screams. Shouting.

"_Don't you touch her, you –"_

"_Back away! Back up. _Back up now."

Mara had the revolver; and this was the last thing I knew before I fell forward into the leaves. Half of my face was damp with muddy droplets, the other half was turned to the blazing sun. Above me was a dim scuffle: footsteps, protestations, fading threats. Mara and Erik arguing, and Mara had the revolver.

Mara had the revolver.

Mara had the...

* * *

Surprisingly, I woke in a dry and relatively clean environment.

I was sitting in a deep, heavily cushioned chair, my feet flat on a dry wooden floor. My hair was pulled back from my face, fashioned in a loose braid; something I'd found out when I reached up to find the bruise on my head.

Something creaked, and then I opened my eyes into Mara's unconcerned stare.

"The man you've been traveling with, he's Christophe?" she demanded.

I blinked up at her, unsure if I'd heard her right, then nodded dumbly, widening my eyes. Perhaps she still thought I was his prisoner. Where was he?

I could ask that, so I did.

There was dried blood at the corner of Mara's mouth from where she'd bit her tongue. And from when I'd smacked her chin, I presumed. She stepped away from me (she'd been bending over the chair, her hands on the arms), and tapped a finger against her chin, where a large mottled bruise had formed, all purples and blues.

"You're worried about him?"

"No," I said, and was glad to hear that my voice was sure. "What do you want from me?"

She looked down at me, dappled sunlight sliding across her hair. There was something official, professional in her steady gaze. "Answers."

I shook my head, and winced for dramatic effect. Perhaps she'd think there was more wrong with me than a headache. "I don't – don't know what you mean."

For a moment I thought she was buying it: her eyes had become distant, as if she wasn't really listening. I glanced around the room: clean wooden walls, varnished floor, one closed window, and a single door, also closed and latched. It seemed to be late afternoon. Birdsong drifted in through the window, and the light that brushed Mara's gown was bright amber.

"Do you take me for an idiot?" she said.

I snapped my eyes to her face. She clasped her hands in front of her in the same manner she'd affected earlier, but now I saw that it was a customary pose, something she did to calm herself down. It looked as though she was holding herself away from me; it looked as though it was a stance she'd worked at.

"I know the man you are traveling with is not Christophe Janvier. Do you know how I know this?"

I stared wordlessly at her. She could be bluffing.

Mara rolled her eyes in a distinctively Italian fashion. "I am not a fool, girl. I know he is not Christophe, and that he knows you very well. I know how a man looks when he is in love."

"How do you know he's not who he says he is?" I said, grasping at straws.

She sighed deeply, pressed a hand to her lips. Then she went to the door, her feet rapping briskly across the wood, and threw it open. "Come in, whoever you are. Come in. Yes. Get up." She gestured into the hallway; I heard someone moving, then a low voice – Dante. Mara moved away from the door, folding her hands before her.

Erik came in, followed immediately by a stooped and bruised Dante. He pointed his revolver at Erik's back, directly between his shoulderblades.

I frowned, glancing around, but I couldn't see the other one. Where was Mara's revolver?

"It's mine," Mara said, seeing my confusion. "The revolver he's holding is mine. His is false."

"You know how I hate the noise," Dante said, his tone conversational.

Mara ignored him; her eyes were flitting over Erik.

"This is idiotic," he said to her. "There is no reason for such charades. You know who I am; you know who she is, and you should let me do my work."

"Your work is finished," Mara replied.

"I've told you - " He paused to regain his temper, working his jaw. "My instructions have changed. Mademoiselle Dubois is still in my care, not yours."

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I felt it was best to remain silent. I focused on looking sullen and afraid: for some reason, this was not difficult.

Erik stood calmly near the window, watching Mara, his mouth a flat line. His hands were loose at his sides. He had no visible bruises or wounds. When I was certain neither Dante nor Mara could see, I nodded slightly at him, telegraphing my well being. I felt better than I had before I'd collapsed in the clearing.

Mara sighed, then took a step towards Erik, careful to stay out of the revolver's range. Then she fished a handkerchief out of her pocket, reached out, and drew it swiftly down Erik's cheek.

He'd moved too slowly to avoid it, trapped between the wall and the revolver's sight, unwilling to hurt a woman. I saw the panic rise and fall in his eyes as the pale cloth descended. When Mara stepped away from him, I found myself on my feet, almost panting for air, my lungs tight. She'd swept the makeup from his face, and his scars lay clear and white on his face.

Dante barked a sudden laugh: relief, I thought. Perhaps they had been more worried and less knowledgeable about Erik than we'd thought. I dug my nails into my palms. What would we do now? How to get rid of the gun?

Erik said nothing, only looked back to Mara, who was examining her makeup-stained handkerchief with a knowing air.

"Calm down," she said, without looking up. "Both of you. Dante, I think this is better – don't you?"

"Yes," Dante replied. He lowered the revolver, glanced at me. "Look, we don't –"

My fiancé snatched the revolver from his hand, snapped the back open, and emptied the bullets into his palm. Then he threw them out of the window. The revolver went into his pocket.

We all stood still for a moment, staring at him.

Then something like a smile flashed across Dante's face, and he straightened to his full height, wincing at the pull of sore muscles.

"Well," he said, slowly, his tone light, "I had not really planned on using it, anyway."

"True," Erik said, meeting the other man's gaze. "Or you would have held it correctly. Now, if that's all, I think we'll go." He looked imposingly at Dante, then Mara.

She was already raising a hand to stop him; she glanced hurriedly to me. "Irene, we're Italian police, _Carabinieri_. Christophe Janvier, as per our agreement with the French police, was supposed to bring you to us. We need you for our investigation."

She'd drawn her identification from her pocket; Dante was doing the same.

But I was already moving towards the door, Erik at my heels. "No, thank you. And can I say, I don't believe you? Since when do the Italian police chase after kidnapped women and threaten them? Since when do they try to shoot them?"

Her voice rose. "We need your help! We're trying to find a _child!_"

I couldn't say no to that. I stopped in the doorway, half-furious, half-sympathetic; Erik ran into me, grunting in mingled pain and annoyance.

I'd forgotten about Stella. Damn.

"Did I mention she's been missing for nearly a month?" Mara said, her tone cajoling.

"Oh, _God,_" Erik said, over my head. "Irene?"

I turned around, and Erik moved quickly out of my way: perhaps he'd seen the look on my face. Mara and Dante looked at me, their profiles inscribed in the orange afternoon light, two pairs of eyes glinting in either hope or dismay. I couldn't quite tell which. I didn't think it mattered.

I looked at them, wondering what I was getting myself and Erik into.

"Tell us everything. And do it quickly. We would really like to get home sometime."

I meant it, too: I was growing quite sick of Italy, wily detectives, and missing children.

Mara didn't smile, but her triumph was plain enough. She looked me up and down, then shook her head. "First, we eat. But before that, I'll find you a new gown. You must be very sick of that one."

At last, we were in agreement.

* * *

We ate dinner out on the terrace. Yes, we were in the lake house, and it was actually quite lovely. The cottage, shaded by trees, stood two stories high. Inside was a winding staircase; airy, bright rooms, and a general sense of calm. Outside the terrace stretched to the lake's edge, curving in a half-circle back to the house; the sun was setting slowly overhead, painting the water and grass in shades of gold-red.

Dante had rummaged through the pantry and found a bottle of wine, some Gouda cheese, a pear tart, and fresh bread. Apparently the caretakers of the house stopped by twice a week to restock and scrub the floors.

For once, I was clean, full, and dressed in relatively nice clothing. The gown Mara had found for me was a fine light purple, made from lacy lawn with tiny swirls of pale flowers scattered over the bodice and skirt. I'd washed my face and hands, swept my hair up off my neck, and cleaned my teeth. Erik and I had been given the upstairs rooms (I fancied Mara and Dante wanted to make sure we didn't sneak out the front door at night), and the washing facilities there were more than ample.

Erik was much calmer than I'd seen him all week. He lounged in his basket chair, his long legs extended towards the lapping water of the lake, one hand propped under his chin. His plate lay empty on the table, dotted here and there with crumbs. I sat back in my own chair, savoring the feel of cool air on my face and the soft warmth of a silk blanket over my lap. The lake house had every amenity.

Gingerly, I lifted the last of the pear tart to my lips. I chewed, closed my eyes in bliss, and swallowed.

Dante and Mara watched us warily. Their plates lay on the table, hardly touched.

"It's very nice here," I said, brushing crumbs contentedly from my fingers. A small cloud of flies had gathered near the middle of the lake, flickering like tiny lights in the dimming sunlight. Past them the trees stood tall and serene, their branches deep with shade.

Erik sighed. I glanced sideways at him. He quirked one side of his mouth down.

I acceded. It seemed it was time for us to find out more about Stella.

"You'll be telling us about the case now, I think."

Mara looked up at my tone of command, her eyes narrowing. "Will we?"

"Yes," Erik said, and swiveled around in his chair to face the two of them. "We've agreed to help you. You'll share your information with us."

Dante shoved his chair back from the table with an impressive scraping noise, and stood. I watched him with trepidation: what did he intend to do? Thank God Erik had taken the gun away.

Then he stalked into the house, and I relaxed back into my chair, releasing my grip on the wood. Mara smiled briefly after his retreating figure, her eyes crinkling with amusement. She glanced at me, then Erik.

"He's getting the case file for you," she said. "You should be happy. Dante doesn't make friends easily."

"What – we're friends now?" I demanded. "You must be joking. He's not friendly at all. "

She shrugged. "He's not friendly in that way. You will understand eventually." She smiled again, and looked down at her truly awful wedding ring. I followed her gaze, saw the flash of memories in her eyes, the happiness in her expression, and realized something. It wasn't simple camaraderie or familiarity between the two of them. It was something more. Deeper.

"You _are_ married to him?"

"What?" Erik said. He looked from me to Mara, confused. "But you work with him – and I thought –"

"Wrong," said Mara. "You are wrong. Yes, Irene, I am married to Dante. I met him before I began my work with the _Carabinieri_, when he was still working as a regular detective there_. _He was the one who convinced the captain to let me work undercover." She gave Erik an ironic look. "You, of course, would think I gained my place there by _other_ means –"

Erik blinked at her, too kind or too flabbergasted to say anything in response. If he denied it, she'd accuse him of being too vehement, and he had no reason to assume she'd ascended to police work by so-called 'other means.'

"You don't even know him," I snapped, cutting into the conversation. "Keep your speculations to yourself. Where is Dante? Is the file so carefully hidden?"

Mara's shoulders relaxed, now that we were off the topic of her job, and looked towards the house. "No, I can hear him coming back. See, there's the staircase."

Even I, not blessed with Erik's hearing or attuned to the sounds of the lake house, could hear the wooden stairs shifting and groaning with the noise of Dante's passage. He came out into the fading sunlight of the terrace a moment later, carrying a thick folder.

He sat down at the table, flipped it open, handed me a sketch of the missing children, and began talking.

* * *

I would not have guessed it if I'd passed him in the street, but Dante was a wonderful speaker. There was something of the dramatic flair in him, but without the need for lengthy exposition. He threw out sharp phrases, gesturing occasionally for added emphasis, slicing into the heart of what he wanted us to understand.

There was really nothing more we learned; the facts of the case were only reinforced. Stella and Pietro had been missing for twenty-three days, and in that time, several new pieces similar to his had appeared on the market.

One was an impression of _Woman with a Veil_, the other three were originals, exhibited Pietro's touch: a playfulness with chiaroscuro that gave his paintings a brilliant sort of liveliness. The _Carabinieri _had been tracking these pieces and their buyers (even buying one themselves, in order to question the dealer who sold it), but nothing had come of it.

The dealer had said he'd received the paintings from a plain-looking man: nondescript, dark-haired, Italian, boring. He looked like anyone else in Venice, and he had not given his name or his address. The dealer didn't care or didn't want to know about the kidnapping: he'd received a lovely painting for a good price, a painting which only vaguely resembled Pietro Crocetti's distinctive style. Why did it matter to him that the boy and sister were missing? He didn't want to get in trouble with anyone. He just wanted to keep his business running.

Dante finished speaking. I sighed, feeling rather depressed. The sun had nearly set behind the trees, sending shafts of dying light across the lake, and it was growing cold on the terrace.

Well, I had questions. "So why do you think the Inspector's behind this?" I began. "And what do you need me for?"

Erik uncrossed his arms and drew a deep breath, apparently preparing for an argument. He was still averse to my determination to go to Venice. Mara shuffled the papers back into the file, looking carefully at me from the corners of her eyes. It was Dante who answered.

"We don't know who's behind the kidnapping," he said, knocking out his pipe against the table. "We do not even know if either of the Crocetti's are still alive. But we do know that the Inspector – or someone very like the Inspector – was sighted in Venice a few days before Pietro and his sister were taken. In fact, he was seen by Pietro's apartment. And we have –"

Mara suddenly raised a hand to pat at her hair, and he trailed off. "We have reasonable suspicion to believe it's him."

"Don't lie to us," Erik said. His voice was cool. "Explain the reasoning behind your suspicions. You must have something valid, or you wouldn't have deigned to work with the Parisian police."

Dante, clearing his throat unhappily, looked to Mara.

She fixed him with a glare. "And this is why I do the talking."

"Explain," I said, tucking my hands more securely into my blanket. "What do you have?"

Mara turned back to us, her brows drawn together, and reached for my plate. I let her have it; she stacked it and Erik's on top of the others on the table.

"We," she said, "are in possession of a note. A ransom note, to be exact. We thought it best not to tell you –" here she glanced pointedly at Erik " – for fear of overreaction, but since Dante –" a fierce glance at him, now "– has decided it is best to enlighten you, I shall tell you about it."

She leaned back in her chair, smoothing her skirts. "The note asks for one Irene Dubois' presence in the Piazza San Marco on August 3rd, along with her new fiancé, Erik, also known as the Phantom."

So _that_ was how Officer Fabre had known about Erik and I; the ransom note had told him. Mara continued, ignoring Erik's fierce stare: "If you and Erik come to the Piazza at ten in the morning, the writer promises to release Stella. We will, of course, have _Carabinieri_ stationed in the Piazza, watching the entire exchange. We will regain the girl without the two of you being harmed in any way." She paused. "If you wish to do it, we have two days to prepare you."

It was August 1st. We didn't have much time. I broke in before Erik could speak, as his hands had tightened menacingly on the fragile wood of his chair. "We will think about it. Thank you for your explanations."

"Do you have the note?" Erik asked sharply.

Mara shook her head, somewhat calmer than she'd been.

"No, it is back in Venice. Our handwriting analysts are still going over it. The last I heard, it was definitely a man's writing, a conceited, educated, older man. He is slightly overweight; he was raised in France, and then he spent some time in the Italian countryside. Recently, he was badly injured. We suspect some sort of heavy scarring along his left side."

"Thank you," I said, mulling this over. Heavy scarring; older man; conceited. Not the Inspector, then. I still doubted he was even alive. It had to be his second-in-command, someone who had known Erik and I, someone who had known the secret of my identity. Someone like Nicolas – but it couldn't be.

Both Mara and Dante had risen from their chairs, having recognized the dismissal in my voice, and were carrying the plates and papers back into the house. The door swung shut behind them - and the sound of their beginning argument. Mara's voice was the loudest; I suspected Dante hadn't meant to let the information about the note slip; that he had been stupid. But it was better for us to have every detail. I wasn't worried about their relationship. At least they hadn't been stranded in Italy, with enemies pursuing them from every direction.

Erik turned to me, still tense, his face strained. His dyed hair curled over the collar of his borrowed shirt and around his earlobes.

"I think you need a haircut," I said, at the same moment he said, "I don't think this is a good idea."

"Which? The haircut or the exchange?"

Erik almost smiled. "The exchange, of course." He rubbed his chin, and looked pensively out over the lake. "There are measures we can take to prevent our own kidnapping – or harm – but they will be difficult to perform in a crowded area like the Piazza. And of course the kidnappers could simply drive away with Stella, if they thought their plan was in jeopardy."

I got up. "Keep thinking about it, dear. I'm going to get a pair of scissors and some candles."

* * *

When I returned, carrying a candelabra and thick scissors (the only ones Mara had), Erik was standing at the water's edge, his hands in his pockets, his face turned up to the sky. I set the candelabra down on the table, mindful of the hot wax, and walked across the terrace to him, still holding the scissors.

"How's your shoulder?" I said.

Erik jumped. "Irene. You startled me." He turned and looked down at me, his eyes dark in the twilight; he smiled at the scissors. "It's alright. You can look at it later, if you still wish to."

"I do," I said firmly. "Go sit down. Your hair is _really_ quite bad."

He walked past me, his gait almost normal – perhaps his shoulder was almost healed – and sat down with his back to me. I went to stand behind him, running my fingers through his hair. Goodness, it was long. How had I not noticed it before?

"You cut my hair last year," he said.

I smiled at the memory. It had been just after our first run-in with the Inspector, after I'd learned Erik's new name, and when he'd begun to tell me some of his past. He'd been seated at the kitchen table in his underground home, trying to convince me that he looked more attractive with his hair longer, that it somehow enhanced his roguish appearance. I'd laughed at him. Such a silly man: of course he looked better when his hair was short and neat.

"That was when you told me about your mother," I said, measuring his hair with my fingers. "You said she used to cut your hair when you were small."

"Before the gypsies came," he agreed. "After that – well, there were not so many haircuts, then."

I fell silent, sorry for having reminded him of the Circusmaster, and began to snip away at his fine thick hair. It fell in pale blond curls around my feet and onto his shoulders, ashy trails against the white fabric.

Erik looked steadfastly at the side of the house, unmoving. I thought he was remembering some of the more sordid details from his past.

His voice surprised me. "I know you don't mean to bring up painful subjects, Irene. I am much happier now, with you. Much happier. Anything you ask me, I will answer."

"Oh, Erik," I said, blinking, and closed the scissors. "But it seems that pain follows you wherever you go."

"Pain follows all of us," he said, and he reached around the chair to touch my wrist with a finger. "It is what makes us better. Stronger. Kinder."

I swallowed; let my face drop against the back of his head. His hair was soft on my cheek. "You still think we shouldn't go to Venice?"

He waited until my breathing calmed, then said, "We should go."

"Stella," I agreed, and straightened, raising the scissors.

The sun fell away behind the forest and the dark lake vanished into obscurity; still I snipped away at Erik's hair, my hands bathed in warm candlelight. He sat in his chair, quiet, watching the silent house for signs of trouble. But it was a good silence, and I was not afraid. We were not alone.


	15. Fourth Morning

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* * *

I woke to the sound of rain, a fierce pattering against the wooden shingles of the roof. My room was cold and dark, dimmed by the ominous weather that fell over the lake house. The bookshelf against the wall was nearly in shadow. So was the painting that leaned beside the locked door. I pushed back the covers and padded slowly into the frigid bathroom.

When I returned, I pulled one of Mara's loaned items from a wooden chair: a thin dressing gown that slipped easily over my shoulders and tied at my waist. She had good taste in clothing; the dressing gown was warm and yet not heavy, and the pale yellow was somber enough for my tired eyes. I went to the window and looked out, intending to examine the terrace, but the rain obscured the whole view. All I could see was gray water, and the ever-shifting lake.

The door to Erik's room stood open, so I went downstairs.

* * *

He was sitting at the table, a cup of lukewarm coffee by his hand. The sketch of the Crocettis lay flattened on the smooth wood before him. His eyes were lowered: he was intent on their little inky faces, faces I'd already memorized. (The swirling widow's peak over Pietro's thin brow; Stella's grave, ambivalent eyes; her almost-frown.) It was the girl whose image was strongest: the artist had drawn her first and added the in boy later, for he stood slightly to her left and behind her. His face was partly in shadow; hers shone with embellished light. At her feet was a single bird. Above his head was the sun.

"Symbolism," Erik said, to me. I sat down across from him, and he turned the sketch towards me. Yes, it was symbolism, no doubt, but of what?

"Pietro drew this?"

Erik indicated the right corner of the sketch with his thumbnail. I leaned forward to squint at the place he indicated.

A small, circular P.M.C. adorned a ribbon held by a hastily penciled-in bird, its single eye turned to the viewer. The massive empty wings were outstretched; it seemed to float half-there, half-not, above the two siblings' heads. I recognized it: it was an albatross. The bird at Stella's feet was its newborn chick.

"How long ago was this drawn?"

"The _Carabinieri_ don't know for certain. They estimate a few months. It appears recent: the paper is not worn, and the ink isn't smudged or damaged in any way. It could have been kept in a dry place, but then it would have yellowed. I would say, not less than a few months, as the _Carabinieri_ thought."

"But the pencil – odd, that he would add his signature in something other than ink. Can we be certain he drew it?"

Erik looked at me, and I saw that there were thick blue smudges under his eyes, emphasized by his lightened hair. "Does it matter?"

"It might."

He shook his head. "I don't know. They don't know. They brought the sketch so they'd have a fairly recent portrait of the Crocettis. Favero said it was a good likeness of them, and he gave it to them when they asked for a description. Pietro had showed it to him a few months ago. Of course, I heard this secondhand, as both Mara and Dante did, so the information may have changed."

"Luckily, it is not your job to ascertain whether our leads are correct or not," said a deeper voice, and the outside door slammed.

Dante stood on the rug before the front door, his dark coat and low-brimmed hat dripping water around his feet. His mouth was turned up in gentle amusement: as if we were misbehaving children, and he, the disapproving, conspiratorial uncle.

"It will become our job if we find ourselves trapped with the Inspector because of them," Erik said, his voice too calm. "I don't suppose you thought of that before you agreed to drag Irene and I all the way down here."

"Originally," Dante said, ridding himself of his coat and hat and leaning down to unlace his boots, "it was only supposed to be Irene."

"Oh, that's right," I said, cuttingly, "it was only supposed to be _I_ who was kidnapped and forced into a dangerous investigation against my will. I'd forgotten that. Thank you for reminding me."

Dante's smile changed into something a little more angry than amused; his fingers paused on the laces, and Erik glanced sideways at me, one pale eyebrow flickering upwards in commiseration. He relaxed back into his chair, looked across at Dante, let his breath out in a long hiss. I picked up the sketch, smiling.

"And so what do we get, but _you_," Erik murmured, "you and another _Carabinieri_ who don't know much of anything, and who don't care about the two of us. If Irene and I are going to be thrust into the midst of another one of the Inspector's crazed plans, we need good information. Very good information." He paused. "Wouldn't you agree, Mara?"

His last question was directed to somewhere past my head: I looked away and saw Mara coming down the staircase, her hand on the banister.

"Dante," she said, "what have you been saying to our guests?"

Her husband rose to his feet, discarding his shoes under the coat rack, and went into the kitchen. He spoke over his shoulder as he began to rummage through the cabinets. "Really, Mara. I know you heard the entire conversation."

"Don't be a child, Dante." She lingered at the base of the staircase, her hand still on the curve of the banister. "Did you have a nice night, Irene?"

"It was passable," I said, and set down the sketch. "I don't suppose you have some sort of plan for our transport into Venice. Also, I need new luggage, if you wish me to stay in Venice for any amount of time. Mine were _lost_, you could say." Of course I hadn't brought much of anything with me - I'd left Paris forcibly, trapped in Christophe's drugged hellhole of a carriage.

Erik swallowed the rest of his coffee and set it down in its saucer with a crash. "As were mine. All I have is Christophe's suitcase, which is sadly lacking in necessities. And while we're on the subject of Venice, who are you planning to communicate with there? Can you convince them that I am supposed to be traveling with Irene?"

Mara hesitated.

"Perhaps I should rephrase," Erik said. "_How_ will you convince them that I am supposed to be traveling with her?"

"You _could_ simply stay here," was Dante's cool reply. He came back into the sitting room, carrying a tray of toast, nuts, and coffee. He sat down across from Erik, his face impassive, and reached into the bowl of nuts for a cashew. "It would be much easier if we only brought Irene. Especially since our police friends are not expecting another man."

I reached for the coffee pot and a cup before Dante could stop me. "Then you tell them Christophe insisted upon coming. We can continue under our charade – or, to make things simpler, you tell them the truth. That the Parisians were unable to stop me from bringing Erik, and so we intend to stay together in Venice. Yes, it will sound as though you bungled the assignment –" – Mara's lips had parted in dismay – "– but you did, after all, when you attacked the two of us. I am quite sick of lies."

"We will have to leave out the part where I impersonated an officer of the law," Erik conceded, "but I'm sure the two of you can handle that easily enough. I mean, I do hope you can."

"But – you – we're not answering to you," Dante snapped, breaking an almond in half and brushing the debris from his shirt. "I do _not_ think this is a good idea. Mara, you can't possibly agree with it?"

His tone was too anxious; I felt a surge of relief. Mara leaned against the back of his chair, her lean body relaxed against the wood, one deft hand on his shoulder. She tilted her head slightly, tugged at the magenta sleeve of her dress. Her eyes closed briefly in thought.

Then she sighed, smiled, opened her eyes. "We can handle it."

"Good," I said, as firmly as I could. Inside I was rejoicing; perhaps this would work, perhaps we would finally have something to stand on. "Good. Now I need to buy new luggage. Is there somewhere in town you can take me? And is there a good doctor? I would really like someone to look at Erik's wound."

"Irene, I –"

"Not yet," Dante interrupted, breaking into Erik's immediate objections. "If we're going to include Erik I want to know if he can work with us. From what we've heard, Phantom, you're a dangerous eccentric with a flair for criminal activity. You live in the catacombs of Paris and spy on people. How can we trust you? And why should we let you join the investigation?"

Erik blinked lazily, incredulously at him. "You want to know if you can trust me?"

The _Carabinieri _man said nothing, only looked at him without any expression, chilling me. I had been right the first time I'd met him: his eyes _were_ as dead and cold as a corpse's, and I did not envy the man who sat behind the stare. He wasn't quite all right, I thought, in the head – or perhaps he was, and the world he'd seen was not. And it had changed him.

"You can't," Erik said. He rose to his feet in a single lithe movement, as if he'd never taken Christophe's bullet in his shoulder. "You aren't going to be able to. Irene and I, we trust each other. But we will not trust you."

Mara stirred as if to protest.

"_Either_ of you," I said to her, and got to my own feet, taking a piece of toast from Dante's tray. I sauntered after Erik, my feet tapping on the wooden floor. "But you can trust that we will help you find the Crocettis. Otherwise –"

"– if you try to cross us, we promise you won't be happy with what you get," Erik finished.

I turned and looked at the two of them. They were quite still; both obviously fuming, but something laughed in Mara's eyes. Dante's arms were ridged with taut muscle; he did not smile.

"Shopping," I reminded them. "Do you have a horse?"

* * *

They didn't have a horse. But they did have a nice wet path through the forest.

Erik and I slogged through the mud, carrying flimsy umbrellas and wearing too-thin clothing. Erik's borrowed coat clung damply to his shoulders and chest and back; Mara's cape flicked water into my eyes with every step. But it was nice to be out of the lake house, nice to be away from Mara and Dante for a while. Even when we'd been on the terrace last night, we'd known that the _Carabinieri _were listening to our conversation.

The rain had started as a light drizzle, softening since the morning, but as soon as we reached the midpoint of our walk, the world vanished under a deluge of furious downpour. For a while we managed to continue without mishap, but then -

"Good God," Erik finally gasped. A particularly vicious surge of wind had just turned his umbrella inside out. He wrestled with it while I tried to cover him with mine, both of us rapidly growing exasperated. For a moment it seemed the bothersome umbrella would bend to his will, but then it ripped itself from his hand and sailed off among the trees.

He stared after it, his eyes wide. I watched him struggle to hold in a curse; I was keeping back one of my own. Those wretched _Carabinieri_.

At last he burst out, "What is _with_ this weather? It is never so – d– so terribly _rainy _in Paris!"

"You're always inside; how would you know?" I shouted over the howling wind, blinking against the water. My umbrella pulled at my hands, fighting to get away, but I dug my feet into the mud and held on. "It does become uncomfortable sometimes, but at least we have _buildings_ there! These trees are completely unhelpful!"

"I see the town," Erik shouted back, one hand up to block the rain. He started forward again; I scurried beside him, trying to corral my skirts into behaving. Erik's hair straggled over his face in pale knots, thrust awry by the wind; trails of water ran down his chin and into the neck of his coat. Luckily, his water-repellent makeup stayed in place. "We'll be there in a matter of minutes. Here, take my hand – these puddles are rather –"

_Splash._ Too late; I'd already misjudged the width of a puddle and stepped directly into it. Water flew up around me in a geyser of brown liquid; my skirts filled instantly with gritty mud. I brushed a soaked hand across my face and looked down at my waterlogged, squishy shoes. My umbrella sagged downwards.

Erik removed the umbrella, took hold of my waist with both hands, and lifted me out, setting me precariously on the shore of yet another monstrous puddle. This one stretched all the way across the road. He snapped open my umbrella and held it over our heads. There was really no point in doing so. I would never be able to repair the damage done to this dress.

Well, at least it was Mara's, not mine.

We looked at the remainder of the swamped path, I wringing water apathetically from the fine material of the gown, and then looked back towards from where we'd come.

"I knew this was a bad idea," I said, trying to clean my mud-stained hands in the stinging rain.

Erik looked down at me, bemused. The rain shrieked and hissed around us like a crowd of flying banshees. "What?"

I took hold of his shoulder and tugged, pulling until his ear was next to my mouth. "Mara and Dante – they're probably back at the house with a fire burning. What do you say we take a hotel room in town? There's no need to crawl back to their house in shame."

"Do we have enough money to do that?" Erik said doubtfully. There was a smear of black mud under his ear; I swiped at it with a finger, lingering under the curve of his earlobe – the mud was thickest there. He shivered, then reached up and brushed my cheek fleetingly with his thumb. His skin was hot.

A sudden warm prickle ran down my spine. I moved a step away, patting at my skirts. "Of course I do. I don't think the water reached it yet. Ah, yes, it's fine."

"Then let's go on," Erik said. He shifted the umbrella to his other hand, took a firmer footing in the mud, and offered me his arm.

I took it. We set off towards town, slipping and sliding and completely ungraceful, the rain screaming at our back, the wind scouring us, the forest a furious mess of mud and water. After a few more steps Erik lost the second umbrella. After twenty I lost my shoe.

But I didn't lose the money, and that was well, for by the time we reached the town, we looked like homeless vagabonds.

* * *

The hotel was, to our surprise (but not really our regret), not quite as comfortable as the Lake House.

Erik had taken to referring to it in capitals, for by doing so, he said, "it gives it an air of superiority, which is how Dante and Mara view the world. Through lenses of their own pigheaded arrogance."

I hastened to press my hand to my mouth before I could laugh at him. Dear Erik, who always accused everyone else of magnified self-importance.

"Yes, dear. Quite true." I lifted my wine glass to my lips and took a deep, refreshing swallow.

We were sitting in the lobby restaurant, clean and dry once more. After a rather long round of negotiations, among which had included a gradual increase of the original rooms' price, the manager had sent some poor busboy to procure proper clothing for us across the street. He'd also graciously allowed us to dry off in the hall with an armful of hotel towels (sadly, they were rather threadbare).

"You should watch for moths," I had told one of the hotel maids, who had, along with six other employees, been pressed into sudden service. She was holding my single remaining shoe; it dripped muddy water and flattened leaves onto the waxy floor. She looked at me with total incomprehension, her gray eyes as dull as a rabbit's.

"Moths," I said, wondering if there was mud stuck in my ears, and if that was why I hadn't heard her response. "The towels – they have holes, you see."

After another short silence, she curtsied and departed, still holding my shoe.

Erik looked across at me with his usual sanguine expression. "Moths?"

"Moths," I repeated, and wrung out my towel into a proffered basin. There was rather a lot of mud in my hair. "Lots of them. Perhaps they don't wash their towels?"

"Dear," he said, "perhaps it is not moths."

"Bedbugs?" I wondered.

The manager instantly reappeared. "What? What did you say?"

"Oh, nothing," Erik said, and smiled the Phantom's smile, not Christophe's gleaming feral grin. His own smile was all allure and menace; people faltered at its appearance, but drew nearer to it, too. He finished drying the back of his neck and dropped his blackened towel into another basin. "We'd like some lunch, I think."

"Your clothing, Monsieur?" the manager inquired, his eyes widening. "The busboy will be back shortly, I believe."

Erik looked questioningly at me.

"We'll wait for the new clothing before we eat," I agreed, wringing out the ends of my hair. "Perhaps you could show us our rooms."

And so after bathing and drying and changing into new clothing, we dined.

* * *

"I wonder," I said, after we'd gone upstairs from lunch, "what Antoinette and the others are doing now."

Erik untied his cravat and laid it carefully on the edge of his dresser. "She's probably rehearsing for the new show. The Count is wandering around wringing his hands, and Nadir is bothering the police."

"They're worried about us, I'm sure. I wish we had some way of communicating with them. If only the mail service wasn't controlled by the Parisian police – but we could ask Mara to send a letter for us."

"I wouldn't chance it, if I were you," Erik said. He yawned, cracking his jaw, and rubbed a hand over his forehead. "You know they don't trust us at all. Are you going to get some sleep tonight? Perhaps you should try for a nap now."

I turned from the mirror, still braiding my hair. "Why do you ask?"

"You seem tense, though," he said, and crossed the room to me. "You don't sleep well when you're like this."

"Like what?" I said, knowing what he meant, but wanting to know _how_ he knew. My head was light with fatigue and my feet were burning with soreness, but I didn't want to rest. I felt as though I still had work to do – that there was still something waiting for me to unravel, to figure out. The Crocettis hovered at the back of my mind; Mara and Dante loomed in the forefront, wary and wanting me to hurry back to the lake house.

Erik only smiled at me, his eyes gentle; I looked back, almost unaware of his presence. Something was bothering me, something I'd forgotten –

Hurry. I had to hurry. Yes, that was it.

"We don't have much time, Erik, remember?" I spun back to the mirror, my hands darting upward again to my hair. "Two days – well, _one_ now – we have to be in Venice for the exchange. We'll have to leave immediately in the morning with the _Carabinieri_."

"It's still only the afternoon," Erik said. I saw him grow closer in the mirror, saw him reach out towards me. He took hold of my shoulders with his strong thin hands, and said, his voice soft in my left ear, "Relax, Irene. We'll be there in time to save her. You should get some rest."

"And what will you be doing?" I asked, through a widening yawn.

His fingers found a particularly annoying ache in my left shoulder: he curled his fingers into the knot, pulling gently at the tightened muscle, and the ache began to seep away. I felt myself begin to relax into his touch, and my eyes fluttered shut.

In fact, I didn't remember I'd even asked him a question until I woke several hours later.

* * *

Mara and Dante had arrived at the hotel by the time I went downstairs for supper, still drowsy with sleep. I didn't recognize them until I realized that Erik was not seated with an unfamiliar couple, but with the undercover _Carabinieri. _Dante had changed into a fashionable black suit, and Mara wore pearls and diamonds around her delicate throat.

My feet sank luxuriously into the carpet as I went towards them. I was thankful I'd stopped to put on some jewelry: an emerald choker, with matching square-cut earrings (courtesy of the manager, who was very pleased with our bargaining price).

The Italian police were seated with their backs to me, but Erik's eyes rose to mine as I approached. He wore a look that said, quite clearly,

"Save me."

I hastened to take the chair by him.

Our company was rather unpleasant. Dante glowered vaguely in my direction, his eyes shuttered. Mara spent an inordinately long time looking over her menu. None of us spoke until the waiter had arrived and departed with our orders.

"Something wrong?" I asked, deliberately lacing my tone with cheer, and directed the question to Dante.

His pale eyes moved from me to Erik, then back again. "We expected you to return to the lake house -" – the _Lake_ _House_, my mind supplied instantaneously – "instead of taking rooms at the hotel."

"The storm changed our plans," Erik said coolly.

"You could have returned," Mara countered, not raising her eyes from her closed menu. "You could have hired one of the carriages."

I waited until she looked up before replying. "And sent the poor driver home in the storm? I think not."

"You will not be acting like this in Venice," she said, slapping her menu down. Her face was remote.

Erik chuckled. He reached out a long arm and lifted a piece of complimentary bread from its basket. "You expect us to follow orders while we're there, do you? What precisely will _you_ be doing? Corralling officers around the Piazza, scaring off the Inspector's men?"

"It will depend on the situation," Dante said, but his voice was too flat to be truthful.

"Oh, really?" I said, fixing him with a stare. "I believe our best course of action will be to act alone, without your officers milling obviously about."

"We have plains-clothes men," Mara snapped. "And of course _you_ did not realize we were undercover police, did you? The Inspector will not be able to do so –"

I shook my head emphatically, cutting her off. "The Inspector _knows_ policemen. Didn't you read the report from Paris? His very own people masqueraded as Parisian police. You will only get your people and us killed, and Stella kidnapped all over again. If you want the girl safe, you will have to let Erik and I do this by ourselves."

Dante's laugh was almost a howl. _"You? You? _You want us to let _you _two run an undercover operation?" He broke off, sputtering in hysteria; then he muttered: "You are children. Idiotic children."

"You think you can do the exchange alone?" Mara asked, looking nearly as incredulous as Dante. "How precisely would you manage to do that?"

"It wasn't as if you would have been much help anyway," I said, swallowing a bite of bread. "Look, you were originally going to have policemen stationed strategically around the Piazza, correct? With perhaps one or two closer to the carriage in case something went wrong?"

"We don't even know if the Inspector plans to bring her in a carriage," Dante interrupted.

I brushed this aside. "Yes, well, he'll bring her into the Piazza somehow – you will still have someone quite close to Erik and I. Maybe it would have been you two. Whatever the case, you originally wanted only me to act as bait: Stella would be brought in, I would pretend to comply with the exchange, you or your men would stop the Inspector from taking me while you whisked the girl away. But I say this: what if I _am_ alone? What if Erik distracts the kidnappers, and in the commotion, I save Stella?"

Erik leaned forward, his mouth tightening – I hadn't discussed this with him; I'd just come up with it on the fly. Dante and Mara shook their heads as one.

"This is a _child_ we are talking about, Irene," Mara said, tapping her fingertips on the table. "A little girl. You cannot be trusted with her life. You are not police; you have no experience in this area."

A waiter stopped by our table with our plates, and we fell silent. I looked down at the steaming ravioli that had been placed in front of me, not really seeing it. The waiter left, frightened away by our thick silence, and then the rest of the dinner party all spoke at once.

"Irene, I think it may be better if –"

"You can't actually be considering this mad plan, can you, Mara –"

"But maybe, if there were policemen in the Piazza, perhaps you could –"

I tapped my spoon loudly against the side of my wine glass, and everyone finally dropped into silence, breathing quickly. None of them looked happy: Erik was glaring at Dante; Dante was staring, his chin lifted, at Mara, lips pulled back in a sneer. Mara's hazel eyes were fixed penetratingly on me.

"You realize," she said, "that we do not know anything about your skills in this matter."

"I do," I said. A rush of fierce pride unfurled in my chest. "But we have them. I am quite good with children, and Erik – well, dear, we'll have to show them what you can do."

Erik's eyes lit, but he masked his enthusiasm instantly. He turned his gaze on the two _Carabinieri_. "I'll need a few things, of course. And we'll need privacy. Not here."

"The lake house?" Mara poked at her noodles, obviously thinking about this. "What sort of things?"

"We'll discuss that later," Erik replied. "And yes, the lake house. After dinner, I'll show you what – well, what _experience_, shall I say – I have in creating distractions. Actually, _illusions_ would be a better word, I think." He shrugged, his muscles sliding under his coat, and took a bite of pasta.

Mara pursed her lips, ignoring Dante's scowl. "Alright. We'll go there after dinner."

"I hope your abilities are as noteworthy as you seem to think," Dante warned. His eyes were narrowed.

Erik only smiled briefly, still chewing. He wasn't about to be dragged into another argument.

Perhaps we'll pull this off, I thought, as I dug into my hot food. Erik had a considerable amount of experience in illusions. He'd lived amongst secrets for years, hidden under his mask, invisible in his underground home, slipping noiselessly through the passages of the Opera unseen. Sleight-of-hand was child's play to him; mass distractions: thoughtful fun.

Come to think of it, some of his tricks had been absolutely brilliant.

I grinned. I'd just remembered the exploding cakes.


End file.
